From an eight-part series about my key creative influences between the ages of 14 through 29, arguably the years when the foundation of one’s artistic point of view is established.
I was at NYU film school, studying film noir with William K. Everson, which led me to the source material.
As it happened, at the time I was working uptown at Ballantine Books, which was publishing paperbacks of the works of both Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.
Hammett’s characters and storytelling resonated. Below are Sam Spade, the Continental Op, and Nora and Nick Charles, with Asta.
So did his use of language. Though he used slang that’s badly dated now, many believe Hemingway learned his terse style from him.
His stories were filled with unexpected turns yet had the inevitability of Greek tragedy.
His characters were nuanced to the point of complete moral ambiguity, but you knew who the protagonists were because at least they had lines they only occasionally crossed.
You understood who people were not by what they said but by what they did, a lesson we should all apply to our own lives.
They were made to order for film adaptation. No less than three versions of The Maltese Falcon were made in the decade 1931-41.
Movie adaptations of Red Harvest include a musical (Roadhouse Nights), a samurai period piece (Yojimbo), a western (A Fistful of Dollars), and a straight up gangster flick (Last Man Standing).
“Hammett is as American as a sawed-off shotgun,” wrote Dorothy Parker. “He is so hard-boiled you could roll him on the White House lawn.”