He is also very logical, working out that it must have been Brigid who killed Archer because Archer's trench coat was still buttoned when he died, meaning he did not sense enough danger as to prepare his gun. However, despite the need for corruption in film-noir, the American culture was unwilling to accept moral corruption as an attribute of Spade -as a detective. Therefore, although lusty and greedy, Sam Spade can be seen as a more realist representation of an upright model who fights all the sinister evils of reality. This was as a result of the undertow of national insecurities in America at the time, having to rid one war for another. This aspect of the text makes it contextually valuable.
In relation to characters it is not just the good-guys in The Maltese Falcon that makes it valuable as a text, there are also the villains. The villains in the story are deceitful, hard-nosed and cursed by materialistic greed -valuable examples of conventional Noir/hard-boiled villains. It is also beneficial to notice how they are all unusual characters Gutman -Russian businessman, Cairo -Greek homosexual, and the emotionally unstable gunman. This in a way is also contextually valuable because the film depicts an (relatively) morally just American detective competing with unjust foreigners, and "winning" as a lasting character on the right side of the law at the end. Once again it reflects America's national insecurity. .
Only heterosexual characters were allowed to be on screen in the 1940s, due to this, the composer portrayed the homosexual Cairo in a very stereotypical way -the feminie voice, the neat the trim clothing, the tantrums etc. This is especially valuable for today's viewers to see the 1940 prejudice against non-heterosexuals and how little they know of them. Other prejudices can be observed in the way women were portrayed in the film. The only female characters were the widowed wife, the secretary and the sensual.
