Rest in Pieces

Dashiell Hammett
Created (well, fictionalized, anyway) by Joe Gores and others

"I want two things. One, I want my story back, it's not much but its what I do. And two, I want to be left alone."
Dashiell Hammett, in the film Hammett

Joe Gores' fictional, but affectionate, take on ex-P.I. DASHIELL HAMMETT has the creator of Sam Spade and The Continental Op pushing aside the typewriter and getting "back on the game", as a favor for a pal. Set in San Francisco in 1928, it's part biography and part novel.

In fact, it's quite an enjoyable book, and went on to become (eventually) an arguably enjoyable film. Production problems, a screenplay reportedly written by a cast of thousands, and a less-than-clear sense of direction by Wim Wenders, hindered the film, but it's still worth a look. It's fun to watch for "quotes" from other movies and Hammett's own work, not to mention somne intriguing cameos (notably those of crimewriter Ross Thomas and Elisha Cook Jr.), and it's not a bad PI flick, either. Sure, both the book, and the subsequent film deal with an "entirely imaginary story", yes, but there's far more "truth" in them than in the recent disappointing A&E TV biopic Dash and Lilly.

By the way, Frederic Forest, who played Hammett in the film, reprised the role several years later, in a scene in Citizen Cohn where Cohn and Senator McCarthy are badgering Hammett to give up some Communist Party names. Hammett replies to them by quoting Lewis Carroll. It's a short scene, but good.

Gores, of course, knows something about real-life San Francisco private eyes who become writers. He's the creator of the DKA series, and a handful of other quality work in the genre. And, of course, Dashiell Hammett was a real guy.

But Joe Gores isn't the only one to take a stab at fictionalizing Hammett. Just like Raymond Chandler, Hammett has been dragged into all sorts of fictional shenanigans. William Nolan even had a series, appropriately titled The Black Mask Boys, featuring pulp writers Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler and Hammett getting into all kinds of mischief as amateur sleuths. The first book in the series, The Black Mask Murders (1994), appropiately enough featured Hammett, and he appeared in the two subsequent novels as a major supporting player.

One of the more entertaining romps featuring the Hammett that might have been is Mike Doogan's 2002 short story, "War Can Be Murder," wherein the no-longer-young "Sam" Hammett stationed in Alaska during World War II, plays amateur sleuth (and shows up drunk at a party, offering a few politically-incorrect -- and still timely -- words on war). For those familiar with Hammett's biography, it's a lot of fun. Certainly, the Mystery Writers of America thought so -- they bestowed the 2002 Robert L. Fish Memorial Award upon Doogan for the story.

Fnally, in 2009, Ace Atkins, best known for his series of books about crime-solving blues historian Nick Travers, imagines young Pinkerton agent Dashiell Hammett hired to on behalf on behalf of silent film star “Fatty” Arbuckle, whose been charged with murder, following the unfortunate death of an actress at one of his wild parties. Based on true incidents (Hammett was involved in the case), it's a neat and intriguing look not just at one of the more overlooked periods of Hammett's life, but also one of the most notorious, star-studded scandals of the twentieth century -- and one of the few Max Allan Collins' Nate Heller seems to have missed.

SHORT STORIES

• "War Can Be Murder" (2002, The Mysterious North, by Mike Doogan; also in Mystery: The Best of 2002)

NOVELS

• Hammett (1975; by Joe Gores). Buy this book
• The Black Mask Murders (1994; by William F. Nolan; featuring Hammett). Buy this book
• The Marble Orchard (1996; by William F. Nolan). Buy this book
• Sharks Never Sleep (1998; by William F. Nolan). Buy this book
• Devil's Garden (2009; by Ace Atkins)...Buy this book

FILM

• HAMMETT.. Buy this video.... Buy this DVD
  (1983, Orion Pictures/Warner Brothers)
  Based on the novel by Joe Gores
  95 minutes
  Adaptation by Thomas Pope
  Screenplay by Ross Thomas and Dennis O'Flaherty
  Directed by Wim Wenders
  Executive Producer Francis Ford Coppola
  A Zoetrope Studios Production
  Starring Frederick Forrest as DASHIELL HAMMETT
  Also starring Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner, Elisha Cook, Jr., Roy Kinnear, Lydia Lei, R.G. Armstrong, Richard Bradford, Michael Chow, David Patrick Kelly, Sylvia Sidney, Jack Nance, Elmer L. Kline, Royal Dano, Samuel Fuller
  Cameos by Ross Thomas

RELATED LINKS

• Writers Who Who Worked On The "Hammett" Screenplay
  An ever-growing list, as more info pours in...

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.