Sam Spade
The private detective engaged by the mysterious Brigid O’Shaughnessy initially to locate her missing sister but then to assist in getting to the Maltese Falcon before her rivals also in pursuit of the mythic jewel-encrusted treasure.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy
Alluring, seductive, duplicitous and treacherous. She first presents herself as Miss Wonderly, desperate to locate her missing sister. The deeper Spade gets drawn into her perverse world, the more intricate her web of lie become to the point where she claim even she has trouble separating truth from fiction. Of course, that could be just another sick lie as well.
Miles Archer
Sam Spade’s partner in detection who gets offered early on while tailing Brigid and Floyd Thursby.
Floyd Thursby
Thursby, Floyd Thug enticed by Brigid O’Shaughnessy to protect her during her search for the jewel-encrusted statuette; she initially hires Spade and Archer as part of a scheme to rid herself of him.
Joel Cairo
Nattily attired, packing a small a gun and giving to crying out like a woman when hit, Cairo is another of those in pursuit of the Maltese Falcon. With alliances and allegiances ever shifting and always in flux, he and Brigid are temporarily in cahoots.
Casper Guttman
As amiable as he is obese, Gutmann has spent the last seventeen years chasing after the elusive bird. He is protective of his bodyguard Wilmer and inordinately expressive of his admiration for Spade’s code of honor. Her cheerful demeanor masks a willingness to betray anyone standing between him and the falcon on a moment’s notice.
Wilmer Cook
Guttman’s bodyguard and, at least according to Spade’s use of slang, much more. Spade dismissively refers to the young man who seems to have learned all he knows about acting like a hoodlum from the movies as a “gunsel’ which was then jargon for a younger man supported by an older homosexual male.
Effie Perine
Spade's ever-loyal secretary who views his giving up Brigid to the police as a betrayal of a lover rather than an expression of loyalty to a personal code of honor.
