Part 1 of Essay
I don’t recall if Gutman said it in the movie about the Falcon being coated by lacquer to obfuscate that it’s really made of gold and jewels. I think it was implied that nothing is what they really seem to be. This is what I believe Dashiell Hammett was trying to communicate through his novel, ‘The Maltes ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... of the “things-are-not-what-they-seemed-theory-for-Hammett’s message.” Spade is callous, avaricious, and shares a similarity with Mike from ‘The House of Games.’ Why I think Mike and Spade are similar? For one thing Brigid O’Shaughnessy gave Spade a talk/speech about him using her pretty much the same thing Ford asked Mike in the airport. Brigid’s comment (p. 211-212) “You’ve been playing with me? Only pretending you cared-to trap me like this? You didn ....