The film stars Ricardo Cortez as private detective Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as femme fatale Ruth Wonderly.

The supporting cast features Dudley Digges, Thelma Todd, Walter Long, Una Merkel, and Dwight Frye.

[3] Maude Fulton and Brown Holmes wrote the screenplay; one contemporaneous report said that Lucien Hubbard was assisting them.

The film was remade by the studio twice, with its 1941 remake starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor overshadowing its predecessors.

[4] In San Francisco, private investigator Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer are hired by Ruth Wonderly to follow Floyd Thursby, a man that allegedly ran off with her younger sister.

Suddenly, a man staggers in, drops the suitcase he is carrying, and dies – it is Captain Jacoby of the La Paloma, who has been shot several times.

Called in to see the district attorney because of Archer's murder, Spade is given 24 hours to wrap up the case and identify the real killers.

Spade calls Effie and asks her to bring the suitcase to them in the morning, while Gutman explains how Wilmer killed Thursby and Jacoby.

They soon determine that it is a fake, they have been duped by the previous owner, and Gutman and Cairo decide to make another attempt to steal it.

Earlier stories by Hammett, Red Harvest (filmed in 1930 as Roadhouse Nights) and City Streets (1931), preceded it.

[2][1] Oscar Apfel was initially cast and listed in some studio promotions as the district attorney; however, for unknown reasons, he was replaced by Wallace.

The 1941 adaptation, which began with a revised version of the 1931 script, closely follows the book as well, although most references to homosexuality, nudity, and other no longer permissible portions under the Motion Picture Production Code are missing.

The bathing, strip-search, overt sexuality, homosexual subtext, and most of the loaded terminology were eliminated from the 1941 remake by the Breen Office.

[8] This version was also filmed largely verbatim to Hammett's story, but removed references to nudity, homosexuality, and other topics forbidden by the Code.

For several decades, unedited copies of the 1931 film could not be seen in the United States; these restrictions were lifted following the demise of the Motion Picture Production Code in the mid-1960s.