Hammett's Moral Vision: The Most Influential In-Depth Analysis of Dashiell Hammett's Novels Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass ... Man (The Ace Performer Collection series)
LB's Rambles (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
On our Classic Mysteries podcast this week, you'll find a review of a series of short stories by Dashiell Hammett, featuring his detective, "The Continental Op ." This detective without a name prowls the streets of San Francisco in the...
watch movies online for free full movie downloads (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
#1 VEOH.COM : Full Movie Directed by W.S. Van Dyke Produced by Hunt Stromberg Written by Dashiell Hammett (novel) Albert Hackett Frances Goodrich Starring William Powell Myrna Loy Music by William Axt Cinematography James Wong Howe Editing by Robert Kern Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Release date(s) May 23, 1934 (US) Running time 93 minutes Country United States Language English Budget $226,408...
Bjørn Stærk's Max 256 Blog (Free subscription) | 11/22/2009
Le Corbeau (1943, France) - An anonymous letter writer spreads dark accusations in a small town. The town is so full of depraved people that practically everyone could be the culprit, or at least are so unlikeable that you don't mind them being falsely accused of it. Watched it all. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943, USA) - By the undead eyebrows of Bela Lugosi, how many are there of these? Watched:...
Underbelly (Free subscription) | 11/21/2009
Bad Attitudes , otherwise unknown to me, picks up on my discussion of "gunsel" offers an additional spin. Recall that "gunsel" may mean "male homosexual"--typically the younger, passive partner--or "gunslinger. Now this: The two meanings are believed to have originated concurrently but independently. gunsel: Or: gonsil/ gonzel/ gonsel: A 19th century term of German...
monochrom (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
Michael Rockler scrutinizes the private investigator's existentialist credentials. Perhaps the most popular existential work of the 20th century was written by a man who has not usually been identified as a philosopher, but whose work clearly embodies existential themes. Dashiell Hammett, creator of the hard-boiled detective novel, applied an existential viewpoint to his writing. His novel The Maltese...
Bad Attitudes (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
I am indebted to Underbelly for today's etymological note : The two meanings are believed to have originated concurrently but independently. gunsel: Or: gonsil/ gonzel/ gonsel: A 19th century term of German and Yiddish (little goose) derivation for a young, inexperienced gay male similar to the more recent gay slang term, “twink.” See sodomite for synonyms. The latter usage — a gun-toting...
the purest of treats (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word...
the purest of treats (Free subscription) | 11/07/2009
He never graduated high school. He laid brick and cinder blocks for a living. Sometimes he pointed out houses and other buildings he had worked on. He used to tell me, "I worked hard, very hard." He started reading seriously as a young boy. He knew a lot about history and geography. When I knew him he read mainly fiction. He liked most kinds of popular novels but especially ones that were...
Book Calendar (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
Reading Woman, August Macke (1887-1914) Daily Thoughts 10/30/2009 I read some more of Sandman Slim during lunch. It is very entertaining. I am almost finished reading it. It might be a bit too dark for some people. It is also a bit profane so some people may not like it. The story is very good though and the writing is excellent for the type of story it tells. This morning, I did a display of mysteries...
Crime Always Pays (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
Uber-agent Darley Anderson was profiled in The Bookseller last week, with this snippet appearing near the end of the piece: What authors need For fiction, he wants his agency to look for character first and plot second among the over 1,300 submissions it gets monthly. “Good writing is the last thing, and we can work with authors on that.” The first thing to say about that is Darley Anderson’s...
SocketSite™ (Free subscription) | 10/29/2009
A single-family Edwardian "tucked away on quiet street between Nob Hill and Downtown neighborhoods" (we'll let you solve that one), 33 Dashiell Hammett sold for $1,275,000 in January of 2007. And if our plugged-in tipster is correct, it "looks...
Blogger News Network (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
This book is clearly a labor of love. Its editor, Vince Emery, is also the publisher, and he obviously took great pains to be sure the book was carefully designed and constructed. It contains twenty-one stories—though in a handful of cases calling them stories rather than vignettes is stretching the point—not all of which are mystery/crime [...]
3:AM Magazine (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
1) The Manual of Detection has drawn a lot of comparisons to various authors: from Friedrich Dürrenmatt to Dashiell Hammett, via Kafka and Paul Auster, taking in Italo Calvino. Which, if any, of these authors were an influence? All these authors to some extent, though Italo Calvino most substantially. While in college I studied Calvino with [...]
Ivebeenreadinglately (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
Since first discovering the giant Modern Library anthology Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural last fall, I've admired it as much for its timing as for its quality: it was published in early 1944, when the war, though going far better than it had been a few years before, was still a long way from being over. I love picturing editors Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Herbert Wise drawing up a list of stories,...
badgerblog (Free subscription) | 10/25/2009
Italian 70s slashers, arid arthouse, a very funny movie about zombies, and a revenge action drama. With upcoming films trailer commentaries and a special "rudest movie patron of the month" report. ############## Pieces _Pieces_, Colony Theatre, part of the Cinema Overdrive grindhouse-like series. 1970s Italian slasher flick. 1970s America in a time capsule filtered through an Italian lens,...
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