I
first met Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) at the movies, specifically, the movies
that were later run on television. I don’t know how old I was when I first watched
William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin
Man, but I do know I loved the movie. And then I saw Humphrey Bogart as Sam
Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
I
probably saw Hammett’s name in the movies’ credits (“based on the novel by”),
but it likely didn’t mean anything. My understanding of who Dashiell Hammett
was and his writing had to wad until the mid-1970s, when a number of his books
were republished. I read The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, The Dain Curse, The
Glass Key, and Red Harvest (the Library of America has assembled all
of them in one volume). I learned that all of his novels except The thin
Man had been first published in serial form in various magazines of the
hardboiled mystery and suspense genre that were common well into the 1950s
(about the only survivors of the genre are Ellery
Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred
Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine). I learned that he wrote numerous stories and
several screenplays.
And
I learned about the man and his life – his work as a Pinkerton detective, his
battle with tuberculosis, how he started writing, his family his relationship with
writer Lillian Hellman (part of the story in the movie Julia; Jason Robards played a credible Hammett); and how he was
caught up in the communist scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He refused
to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, was sent to
prison for that refusal, and was blacklisted by both publishers and movie
studios.
I
still enjoy reading his stories and novels His prose is lean, spare and
power-packed. He was the best of the hardboiled detective school writers, and
even today he’s recognized for being among the finest of American writers.
I
have another reason for enjoying his writing. My father was a fan. He read Hammett
in the 1930s and 1940s, in all those mystery magazines. In fact, my father was
the “target demographic” of many of those magazines, although the term wasn’t
used back then. Reading Hammett is a connection to my father, and a connection
to a very different time in American history and culture.
Hammett’s
stories have been collected and published over the years, and now comes The
Hunter and Other Stories, published by The Mysterious Press and edited
with very helpful commentary by Richard Layman and Julie Rivett. It includes 18
stories and three “screen stories,” or plot summaries for movies. Most of the
stories, including the title story, have never been previously published.
Not
all of the stories are crime or detective stories; Hammett often reached beyond
the mystery and suspense magazines to reach a broader audience. But they are
all recognizably Hammeett, with their tough, lean prose, action-filled scenes
and often surprising twists and turns.
In
“The Hunter,” a detective investigates a fraudulent check, and it’s all in a
day’s work. “The Diamond Wager” concerns a bet – whether a valuable necklace
could be stolen from a jewelry store in Paris. “Magic” has a magician
delivering what will cause himself personal pain. “Faith” is about the tragedy
that dogs a man’s life, and what he does to avoid something worse. “The Cure”
is also about a bet – that one man’s fear of swimming can be cured by another
man (and the consequences are completely unexpected).
The
three screen stories – “The Kiss-Off,” “Devil’s Playground,” and “On the Make” –
are recognizably noir.”The Kiss-Off” eventually became the 1931 movie City Streets,
starring Gary Cooper and Sylvia Sydney. “On the Make” was filmed and released
as “Mr. Dynamite” in 1935. “The Devil’s Playground” was created, the editors
say in their commentary, as part of the deep interest in all-things-China in
the 1920s and 1930s (remember Charlie Chan?) but was never filmed.
It’s
a fascinating volume. The stories are generally all period – they wouldn’t
quite fit, or fit very well, with contemporary sensibilities. But they are
stories by Dashiell Hammett, they bear his trademark and imprint. And that
means they are and will continue to be entertaining.
My
father would have enjoyed them.
5 comments:
I always thought Hellman and Hammett made a fascinating pair. I've read all of her work but very little of his.
You've made me want to read Hammett now, Glynn. Off to the library!
Blessings!
Dashiell Hammett: A MemoirLillian Hellman
The Diamond Wager is not by Hammett. See below:
https://www.blackgate.com/2023/06/29/a-black-gat-in-the-hand-will-murray-on-the-diamond-wager-caper-by-dashiell-hammett/
Someone should tell the publisher!
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