Knight, Deborah. “On Reason and Passion in The Maltese Falcon.” The Philosophy of Film Noir. Ed. Mark T. Conard. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006. 207-221.

Deborah Knight uses her chapter in The Philosophy of Film Noir to look at the seemingly emotionless film noir detectives.  She states that she believes many of these detectives to be both passionate and reasonable, and uses the example of Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon to prove her point.  Knight begins by giving her take on film noir detectives as a whole: what they need to accomplish, how they do so, and how they are separated from so called classic detectives, such as Sherlock Holmes.

After this description, Knight details the relationship between a film noir detective and his client.  Most of the focus in this section is on the relationship between Sam Spade and Brigid O’Shaughnessy.  She outlines most of the interactions between the two characters, and repeatedly brings up the subject of trust.  This leads directly into the next section of the essay, which is in fact titled “The Question of Trust”, and which reminds the reader that trust is a subject brought into question in most film noir movies.   The essay ends with a description of the last scene in the movie, and an explanation of how Sam Spade – the seemingly impassive detective – is able to use reason and passion to escape Brigid and the possible downfall she would lead him to.

The main problem with this essay is that it is written in a very convoluted manner (as one may be able to tell from my summery).  It repeated ly changes focus from the film noir movement to The Maltese Falcon, and these shifts in focus, rather than adding to the author's argument, often serve only to confuse the reader.  This essay does, however, give some important insight into Sam Spade's behavior, and it reminds the reader that the film noir detective is not as one dimensional as he may often appear.