"Maltese Falcon" statue sells for $4 million at auction
A statuette featured in 1941 detective thriller “The Maltese Falcon” sold for more than $4 million at auction Monday.
The final price on the 45-pound, 12-inch-tall prop was $4,085,000, according to Bonhams auction house. That includes Bonham's premium.
The black figurine is one of two known cast lead statuettes made for John Huston's screen version of the film but the only one confirmed by Warner Bros. archives as having appeared in it, said Bonhams, which declined to provide a pre-sale estimate. The winning bid came over the phone.
"The spectacular price achieved reflects the statuette's tremendous significance. The Maltese Falcon is arguably the most important movie prop ever and is central to the history of cinema," Catherine Williamson, the director of the Bonhams entertainment memorabilia department, said in a statement, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The statuette has a Warner Bros. inventory number etched into the base and bears the name of the movie, which starred Humphrey Bogart as private eye Sam Spade.
The figure has a bent right tail feather, damage incurred during filming, Bonhams said. Actress Lee Patrick, who played Spade's secretary, Effie, dropped it while handing it to Bogart.
The statuette's unidentified owner bought it privately in the 1980s. It has been exhibited at the Warner Bros. Studio Museum, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
It was offered in a sale of other classic movie memorabilia in collaboration with Turner Classic Movies.