It is a great flick, Steve. It is one of the reasons I fell in love with Peter Falk as a young girl. Um...I was the young girl, not him!!! His performance in this one was electrifying!!!
I wasn't too thrilled with the quick ending either but other than that I absolutely love this movie.
A little theory I have about why he stood there with his hands in front of him........................Bogart used to do the same thing when he was playing a life-long mobster. He said it was because guys like that were constantly in and out of prison, and obviously handcuffed at various times. In those days they handcuffed criminals in the front. So these guys were used to having their hands in front of their body like that, and when they got out of jail they sort of just 'assumed the position'. It is very possible that Peter picked up on this and adopted it for this role.