Dashiell Hammett wrote his first fiction under the pseudonym Peter Collinson.
Two "Maltese Falcon" statues were used for the film because Humphrey Bogart dropped the original during shooting. The original is on display in the movie museum at Warner Brothers. The statue's tail feathers are visibly dented from the fall.
Legendary actress Geraldine Fitzgerald was offered the role of "Brigid O'Shaughnessy", however, she passed due to other commitments. The role later went to Mary Astor.
Production of "The Maltese Falcon" finished two days early and $54,000 under budget.
The famous Humphrey Bogart version is actually the third version of the novel.
Warner Brothers was prevented by censors from re-releasing the 1931 version of the film, starring Ricardo Cortez, due to its supposed "lewd" content. This prompted the production of the 1941 Bogart classic.
The film was so successful that Warner Brothers made plans to produce a sequel called "The Further Adventures of the Maltese Falcon". However, the director and cast were unavailable and the film never came to fruition.
"The Maltese Falcon" was parodied in Issue 3 of The Simpsons Comics.
Director Huston used much of the dialogue from the original novel, but the censors forced him to remove any dialogue that they deemed "unacceptable". The phrase "By Gads" that is used in excess by Greenstreet was inserted by the censors to replace the phrase "By God" that was used in the novel. Additionally, Huston was warned not to show any excessive drinking. He fought this, arguing that Sam Spade was a man who put away half a bottle of hard liquor a day and to change this would not be staying true to the character.
This event is part of The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest.