Dr. Luhr Serves as Guest Speaker for NYC Film Festival

English Professor William Luhr, Ph.D., was a featured speaker at the new First Time Fest film festival in New York City this past weekend. He introduced the classic film noir “The Maltese Falcon,” based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his “femme fatale” client. Dr. Luhr was chosen for this honor due to his analysis book The Maltese Falcon, which includes a shot-by-shot continuity of the film, essays on its production, reputation and influence over the last half century, reviews from the time of the film’s original release and more. In addition, the volume contains a comparison of this version to earlier film versions of the Dashiell Hammett novel, and helpful explorations of cultural, historical and psychoanalytic issues.