dashiell hamett

poster

It is easy to declare nowadays that Hollywood has run out of ideas, that all they do is remake older movies, or create endless sequels. But the truth is Hollywood has always bastardized itself. This is certainly true with the crime genre. There were actually two adaptations of The Maltese Falcon made before the famous one with Humprey Bogart.

Another Dashiel Hammet novel, The Glass Key was made into two films. The superior one, starring Alan Ladd, Vernonica Lake, and Brian Donlevy was made in 1942. This one was made just four years after the book was published. It isn’t bad, but if you are going to watch just one version of the book, watch the 1942 film. Actually watch the Coen Brothers Miller’s Crossing, which isn’t a direct adaptation, but it was certainly inspired by it.

Anyway, this one stars George Raft as Ed Beaumont the right hand mand of Paul Madvig (Edward Arnold) a gangster who controls pretty much everything is a smallish unnamed city. Pauls in love with Janet Henry (Claire Dodd) whose father is running for state senate. Beaumont thinks Janet is a grifter, using Paul in order to use his political sway to win her father the election. This causes tension between Paul and Beaumont.

When Janet’s brother gets murdered things get even more tense. Paul and Beaumont have it out and Beaumont seems to leave Paul for his rival.

The story is classic (like I said it greatly infuenced the Coen Brothers but it also inspired Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which was then remade as the Clint Eastwood Western A Fistful of Dollars).

This adaptation feels more brutish than the 1942 remake. It also feels like a proto film noir. Some of the pieces of that genre are here, but not quite polished (the remake is one of the classics of the genre).

I generally like George Raft, but he’s not exactly a world class actor. He tends to be a little wooden, which works okay in his gangster pictures, but Ed Beaumont is a guy who knows all the angles and holds his cards close to his chest. Raft just doesnt’ have the nuance to pull it off.

Claire Dodd is nice, but she’s not in the same league as Veronica Lake. There is a scene in both films where Beaumont is worked over by a gangster’s goons. In the remake one of them is played by William Bendix and he’s just terrific. That scene is one of my all-time favorites. Here its pretty much forgettable.

I’d say this is worth watching if you like the Hammett story or the 1942 film. But the remake is by far the superior film so if you haven’t seen that I’d head that way immediately.

nightmare town

In 1999 fans of hard-boiled detective stories got a fresh treat, from writings at least 70 years old. That was the year a collection of Dashiell Hammett’s short stories were combined and released as Nightmare Town. Many of the stories had been unavailable for decades, and several had not been released since the date of their first publication in pulp magazines such as Black Mask. It is a mostly hodgepodge collection filled with some real classics and some failed duds. It’s more of a rarities boxed set than a greatest hits package. But for fans of Hammett, it is a real gem.

The stories run the gamut of Hammett’s writing. There is a small collection of Continental Op stories, Hammett’s nameless tough guy private detective seen in his first two novels, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse. We get a couple of short sequels to The Maltese Falcon starring Sam Spade. There are plenty of murders, bad guys, and even an early draft of The Thin Man, minus any appearance of Nick and Nora Charles.

Many of the stories suffer from the necessary short length of a short story. It is a difficult feat to devise a tense, terse plot, find a crime, create interesting characters, and solve the mystery within 20 odd pages. On several occasions Hammett misses. He takes shortcuts with the plots or explains away the mystery without giving sufficient evidence within the preceding pages.

My favorite Hammett character, the Continental Op, makes several appearances. He is a quiet, tough, private detective who works by his own set of morals. Some of his stories work like gold, while others seem rushed, or as if Hammett was still working out his craft. Too often the Op repeats the details of the case to himself (and the reader) and wonders who to trust, and what to believe. It is an unbelievable detail and one that thankfully Hammett gave up as a writer.

There are a few real gems in the collection “Ruffians Wife”, “His Brothers Keeper”, and “The Thin Man” among them.

“Ruffians Wife” is the story of a tough guy’s wife who spends her days romanticizing her husband’s work. When that work is brought home and the violence made real her, instincts change and she sees just how awful those things are. It is written in a sparse, bleak style, giving every gritty detail the right color to feel reality rushing in.

“His Brother’s Keeper” is minus the murders and plus on wayward kids trying to get their one shot at being a contender. “The Thin Man” has nothing to do with the novel of the same name but may be the best story of the bunch. It is a breezy tale about an insurance man more in love with poetry than trying to find a swindler. There actually is a bit of Nick Charles in him in that he is light-hearted and bent more on romanticism than fighting crime. The detectives seem to follow him around and kid him more than try to do their own jobs. The story unfolds in a light easy flow.

The real thrill of “Nightmare Town” is an unfinished early draft of The Thin Man. While some of the plot details are similar this is a completely different novel in terms of tone. Nowhere is the cocktail-drinking, wise-cracking Nick and Nora Charles. Instead, we get the silent, tougher-than-nails detective John Guild. He is sent to investigate a bad check and winds up for a long twisted ride helping a young District Attorney on his first murder case. This is only the first ten chapters, but it leaves me wishing for more. A wish I’ll never get granted. Much the same can be said about all of Hammett’s writing.

Nightmare Town is probably not the best place for a Hammett newbie to begin. Any of his full-length novels would serve as a better starting place. But for those of us who have read every other published word he has written, this is a great way to see some of his early work and unfinished texts. A welcome addition to your mystery bookshelf.