When they finally have the falcon and are examining it on a desk Greenstreet takes a knife to it to exam it. Chipping away at it he exclaims "It's fake!" 'It's a fake!". There's a definite voice change that's not his. Dubbed? Added later? Why? This has always bothered me. Watch the scene and you can clearly hear it.
shareFolks have been pitching this question around now and again for at least 15 years that I've found- and the answer seems to be that nobody knows for sure, or can even suggest a source who might know.
shareFor whatever reason, the director / editor / producer was not happy with the dialogue at that point. New dialogue was dubbed in, and it certainly sounds like it was someone other than Greenstreet. It is likely that he was not available for the post work, or it was simply cheaper to find someone who sounded similar.
Who knows, perhaps the audio master from which all subsequent copies were made was damaged at that juncture of the scene. Or perhaps Greenstreet just didn't deliver the dialogue to the filmmaker's satisfaction. Considering that it's a pivotal point in the film, it is particularly distracting.
Greenstreet's voice is so distinctive that people are going to pick up on it if it is replaced. A BTW on Greenstreet, Eric Pohlman is definitely channelling him in 'The House of the Seven Hawks' (1959). He says his lines so much like Greenstreet in 'The Maltese Falcon.' Then another character quotes a line from 'Falcon' so this is definitely an influence on the 1959 film.
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