Word: hammett
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...Motion Picture Democratic Committee (Dashiell Hammett, Paul Muni, Miriam Hopkins, Fredric March, Melvyn Douglas, Donald Ogden Stewart et al.) telegraphed to Republican Governor Frank Merriam: "FOUR YEARS AGO WE . . . HAD TO CONTRIBUTE A DAY'S PAY TO YOUR CAMPAIGN FUND TO SAVE CALIFORNIA
After the Thin Man (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) avoids the pitfall of most sequels, that of seeming a weak copy of the original, by being so much like its original that only experts in Dashiell Hammett plots will be able to tell the difference. In this picture, Asta. Detective Nick Charles's wire-haired terrier, has a mate, and the scene of operations is San Francisco instead of New York. In other respects, Mr. & Mrs. Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) maintain unchanged the amiably frantic domesticity which, in The Thin Man, set the style for detective cinema...
Before Detective Charles has pinned responsibility for the murder to the least likely character involved, After the Thin Man has introduced to cinema audiences as amusing a group of suspects as Author Hammett, its No. 1 purveyor of this specialty, has yet contributed to the screen. Included are: a monosyllabic cabaret keeper (Joseph Calleia) who shoots at Detective Charles in an apartment house basement; Mrs. Charles's Aunt Katherine (Jessie Ralph), who breaks photographers' cameras with an umbrella as big as a pole-vault pole; mild young David Graham (James Stewart), in love with Mrs. Charles...
Satan Met a Lady (Warner). The Thin Man (1934) set a new style in detective pictures. Imitations of it have been frequent. Satan Met a Lady is the thinnest imitation of it so far recorded, remarkable chiefly because Dashiell Hammett was author of the stories from which both pictures were adapted...
...specious and readable thriller demands more ingenuity and special training than many a novelist can command. And they would further contend that the best murder stories can compete with novels on their own ground. Partisans might instance the tales of Foe, Wilkie Collins and Gaboriau, would certainly mention Dashiell Hammett, "Francis lies," Dorothy Sayers. While admitting that run-of-the-mine murder stories bear as little resemblance to reality as a crossword puzzle and are pieced together with as little regard for grammar and probability, they would point with pardonable pride to such a book as Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy...