“Such stuff as dreams are made of” at the end of John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon” (1941)

At the end of "The Maltese Falcon", John Huston's 1941 adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel, Detective Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond) picks up the titular falcon, asks Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) what it is, and is puzzled by Spade's response: "Such stuff as dreams are made of." The quotation comes from a speech by Prospero in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (1610-11): "We are such stuff / as dreams are made on." In the film, Spade knows his Shakespeare, while Polhaus apparently does not. Yet as actors, both Bogart and Bond surely knew the line. Actors, after all, are immersed in cultural history in ways the characters they play are usually not. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 October 2024)

Ward Bond and Humphrey Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon"