50. Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade 
      The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Although this third screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s classic mystery novel is the most faithful and straightforward of them all, both Hollywood convention and industry censorship kept writer-director John Huston from fully plumbing the sleaziness of detective Sam Spade. The true strength of Bogart’s performance is not in the cool ways he cracks wise, acts tough, and does the right thing (sort of), but in how strongly he implies Spade’s seediness the whole time he’s presenting him as a hard case. The man you see sending Brigid O’Shaughnessy to her deserved fate near the film’s end is clearly a shell—after this moment, there’ll be nothing but death left inside him.

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