MovieChat Forums > The Maltese Falcon (1941) Discussion > The legendary, jewel-encrusted bird

The legendary, jewel-encrusted bird

posted 9 years ago by Rancor-3
9 replies | jump to latest

Something I never got about this movie: they talk about the falcon being jewel-encrusted, yet the statue they bring back is completely devoid of jewels. Why did they have to scratch the statue to determine if it was fake or not when they could clearly see there were no jewels?

[–] Nikostratos 9 years ago

Um, because the jewels would be hidden under the coat of black enamel?

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Exactly.

[–] MovieMystro 8 years ago

I own a copy. There are jewels under there!

[–] Theman (1260) 2 years ago

Can I burrow it?

[–] holtor 8 years ago

Under the coating they expected it to look like this:

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Kniphausen-Hawk.jpg

Turns out it did not.

[–] kwestmo (4385) 5 years ago

the jewel incrusted bird was a legend

[–] liscarkat (19416) 5 years ago

In addition to having jewels, it was supposed to be made of gold. Gutman scraped the black enamel off with his knife to see if it was gold.

[–] Tomiggo (196) 4 years ago

They tell you why in the film!

[–] roreyking (637) 3 years ago

Gutman said, about half-way through the film, that the bird acquired a coat of black of enamel to hide its value. Did you really not get that?