THE MALTESE FALCON
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Tonight’s lineup is a salute to writer Dashiell Hammett, whom the evening’s host, Eddie Muller, pronounces as Dash-EEL, which he insists is correct. (Great. One more name I’ve been mispronouncing all my life, along with what I used to call J.D. Salinger’s Franny and ZOO-ey. Sigh.) It starts off with the movie The Maltese Falcon, but not the familiar Humphrey Bogart vehicle. This one, from a decade earlier (1931, to be precise), stars Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade. Other films in tonight’s tribute include 1936’s After the Thin Man at 11 p.m. ET, and, at 2:30 a.m., the classic 1941 Bogey version of The Maltese Falcon.