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When Warner Bros. was casting THE MALTESE FALCON their first choice to play Sam Spade was George Raft — not Humphrey Bogart.

Raft, a top star since SCARFACE (1932), passed on FALCON, because he didn’t want to risk working with a first-time director. That fledgling filmmaker was John Huston, who went on to direct 37 movies, including THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1949), for which he won Oscars for directing and screenplay. To get out of doing FALCON, Raft used a clause in his contract that specified he could refuse to be cast in remakes.

FALCON’s roots have been forgotten since it premiered Oct. 3, 1941, but at the time it was well known that it was a remake of WB’s 1931 movie THE MALTESE FALCON, which was based on the same Dashiell Hammett novel about San Francisco private eye Sam Spade. The character was based largely on Hammett, whose real first name was Samuel. He’d worked for about seven years, starting in 1915, for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and was at their San Francisco branch before leaving to write detective fiction.

FALCON, Hammett’s third novel, came out in September 1929 as a five-part serial in Black Mask magazine. His next book, THE GLASS KEY (1931), was filmed twice by Paramount — first in 1935 starring George Raft and then in 1942 with Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake & Alan Ladd. His 1934 novel, THE THIN MAN, became a six film franchise for MGM, starring William Powell & Myrna Loy, that ran from 1934-47.

The 1931 FALCON starred Ricardo Cortez & Bebe Daniels in the roles Humphrey Bogart & Mary Astor played 10 years later. Hammett’s story is the same in both films, but because the first version preceded Hollywood’s Production Code, it could show things that couldn’t be on screen in 1941  — like the scene with Daniels bathing or another where Spade forces her to strip when she’s accused of stealing a $1,000 bill by Kasper Gutman — played by Dudley Digges in the original and, famously, in the remake, by Sydney Greenstreet. After we see she doesn’t have the money on her, Spade forces Gutman to admit he palmed the bill, himself.

The classic FALCON was, in fact, Warners’ third version of the novel. Besides the 1931 original, there was the 1936 crime comedy SATAN MET A LADY, starring Bette Davis & Warren William. The characters’ names were different and instead of pursuing a jewel encrusted falcon coated with black enamel, they were seeking an ancient ram’s horn filled with jewels.

It’s easy to see the 1941 FALCON at home by streaming or on DVD, but the 1931 version is a challenge to find — unless you happen to know that in the ’50s WB changed its title to DANGEROUS FEMALE. The studio wanted to avoid confusion with the famous remake because selling vintage movies to TV stations had suddenly become a big new source of revenue for Hollywood.