The Maltese Falcon at the First Time Festival, New York City, Mar. 1

The Maltese Falcon (1941) will be among the first movies presented in the First Time Festival on Friday, March 1, 2013. The Festival will run from Friday, March 1 to Monday, March 4.

The full schedule is located on the Festival website.

Introduced by William Luhr, The Maltese Falcon will be shown at the AMC Loews Village 7. The program begins at 11:30 am. A professor of film at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, NJ, Mr. Luhr is also the author of The Maltese Falcon: John Huston, Director, published in Nov. 1995.

Admission to The Maltese Falcon, and to any single film, is $15, and $12 for students and members of Museum of the Moving Image, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Film Forum, IFP, the Players, and Motion Picture Industry Unions and Guilds, including SAG, DGA, WGA, ICG, MPEG. Passes for the Festival are also available. More information on tickets and passes may be found on the Festival website.

AMC Lowes Village 7 is located at 66 3rd Avenue, in New York City. The cinema’s telephone number is (212) 982-2116.

The First Time Festival honors new filmmakers. In the summer of 1941, The Maltese Falcon was then-screenwriter John Huston’s first directorial effort. In fact, director Martin Scorsese will present the first ever “John Huston Award” to Darren Aronofsky, director of Black Swan at the Players Club in New York City, on March 4, the final day of the Festival.

The Maltese Falcon was stage actor Sydney Greenstreet’s first movie.

The film also represents a number of “Firsts” for Peter Lorre. It was the first film Peter made at the Warner Bros. studio. The first film he made with Greenstreet, an on-screen partnership that would include another eight movies for Warners. It was also the first movie Peter made with star Humphrey Bogart, who became one of his closest friends and with whom he would make another four movies – three at Warners.

And it was also the first movie in which Peter Lorre met actress Karen Verne, who was visiting the set. Peter went on to work with Karen a short time later in another Bogart movie, All Through the Night – and in 1945 made her the second Mrs. Lorre.

In the pages of The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, Stephen D. Youngkin details the making of The Maltese Falcon, as well as the on- and off-screen friendship of Peter and Bogie, and the romance of Peter and Karen. The Lost One is available in hardback, soft bound, and the Kindle and Nook.