DASHIELL HAMMETT IN PICTURES

"Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key] is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before." ---Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

Dashiell Hammett was born 117 years ago today. Completely aside from setting the bar impossibly high in the "write what you know" stakes (seriously, dude was a fucking Pinkerton agent before retiring to write crime novels drawn largely from his real-life experiences, that's just unfair for the rest of us), and being married to Lillian Hellman (herself a chronicler of her own massively badass feats), Dashiell Hammett gave much to the cinema. First, the obvious:




John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, one of the greatest movies ever made and one of the most important progenitors of film noir, was the third version made of Hammett's third novel (numerology hippies are advised to shut the fuck up, but quelle coincidence, non?). The other two, the Ricardo Cortez one and the Bette Davis one, are pretty good, but the Humphrey Bogart/Mary Astor/Peter Lorre/Sydney Greenstreet one sings. It captures the feel of Hammett's book perfectly, and that feel is fucking awesome.

Hammett's fourth novel, The Glass Key, has an equally impressive cinematic legacy. There were a couple direct adaptations made that were okay, but Akira Kurosawa really got shit crackin' with his unofficial adaptation, Yojimbo (often incorrectly called an adaptation of Hammett's first novel, Red Harvest):




One of the great classics of world cinema, Yojimbo makes the very intelligent decision to feature Toshiro Mifune owning the crap out of people with samurai swords, and while most of that is Kurosawa, he himself always attributed the Hammett influence.

Then, legendarily, Yojimbo begat A Fistful of Dollars, wherein Sergio Leone made the incredibly wise decision to make Clint the star:




Clint is Clint, and this was the first picture where it was made clear that Clint is Clint, and is thus historically very important, and while the reflected glory on Hammett is small by percentage, its albedo was fucking blinding, so take another bow, Mr. Hammett.

The Glass Key inspired another cinematic classic, this one based far more closely on the source material. I speak of course of Miller's Crossing.




While still more inspired by than a direct adaptation of The Glass Key, Miller's Crossing nonetheless captures the period atmosphere perfectly, and features original dialogue every bit Hammett's equal (and Hammett was one of the gods).

Hammett's last novel would inspire one of the most deliriously fun movies ever made (and several almost-as-enjoyable sequels), The Thin Man.




Nick and Nora Charles are fucking rad. The degree to which they're based on Hammett and Hellman is debatable, but the degree to which they rule is not. Sure they dress beautifully and can drink any mammal discovered by science under the table, but the greatest thing about them as a couple was that they were both massively in love (emotionally and physically, though the degree to which the latter was permitted to be shown was limited by censors) AND, most impressively, actually liked each other. It's a vividly portrayed relationship, beautifully written by Hammett, perfectly adapted by the filmmakers, and wonderfully played by William Powell and Myrna Loy.

Hammett spent most of the last three decades of his life involved in politics rather than writing. As a real-life character, he was interesting enough to inspire a not-bad fanfic novel called Hammett by Joe Gores that was turned into a not-as-not-bad Wim Wenders picture (like with most Wim Wenders pictures, the degree to which it doesn't suck depends on how much you like Wim Wenders). And then, in Julia, the 1977 movie adaptation of part of Lillian Hellman's Pentimento, Dashiell Hammett was played by the one, the only, Jason Robards.




Here's to Dashiell Hammett. Writer, activist, mensch. One of a kind.