Performing (in) The Maltese Falcon

Abstract

This article uses the self-performances of characters in Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon to advance four propositions about the novel and its three screen adaptations: that Brigid O’Shaughnessy, the novel’s most often remarked role-player, is joined by Sam Spade and most of its other characters in self-performance; that the novel and its first two screen adaptations, Dangerous Female and Satan Met a Lady, treat Spade’s self-performance in three different ways; that Spade’s theatricality in the first two of these adaptations cannot be attributed to Brigid’s behaviour because it predates his first meeting with her; and that the characters’ inveterate habit of self-performance in all versions of Hammett’s story have important implications for the status of adaptations as performances of the texts they adapt.