A Dashiell Hammett Companion

336 Pages·2000·1.8 MB·English

by  Robert L. Gale

A
DASHIELL HAMMETT
COMPANION

A
DASHIELL HAMMETT
COMPANION
Robert L. Gale
Greenwood Press
Westport, Connecticut • London
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Gale,RobertL.,1919–
ADashiellHammettcompanion/RobertL.Gale.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0–313–31095–5(alk.paper)
1. Hammett,Dashiell,1894–1961—Encyclopedias. 2. Authors,American—20th
century—Biography—Encyclopedias. 3. Detectiveandmysterystories,
American—Encyclopedias. I. Title.
PS3515.A4347 Z459 2000
813'.52—dc21
[B] 99–046037
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationDataisavailable.
Copyright(cid:2)2000byRobertL.Gale
Allrightsreserved.Noportionofthisbookmaybe
reproduced,byanyprocessortechnique,withoutthe
expresswrittenconsentofthepublisher.
LibraryofCongressCatalogCardNumber:99–046037
ISBN:0–313–31095–5
Firstpublishedin2000
GreenwoodPress,88PostRoadWest,Westport,CT06881
AnimprintofGreenwoodPublishingGroup,Inc.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To agents of the U.S. Army
Counter-Intelligence Corps
active in World War II—
We gumshoed in all theaters of
the conflict in ways
Dashiell Hammett would surely have admired

Contents
Preface ix
Chronology xiii
Abbreviations xvii
Entries 1
General Bibliography 289
Index 291

Preface
The story of Dashiell Hammett is one of the most curious in the annals
of American literary history. The short span of his active writing career
began with the publication of “The Parthian Shot,” a tiny short story in
The Smart Set in 1922, and virtually ended when he published three
excellent stories—“Two Sharp Knives,” “His Brother’s Keeper,” and es-
pecially “This Little Pig”—in Collier’s in 1934. During this period, Ham-
mett published sixty short stories, five novels—including The Maltese
Falcon and The Thin Man—a few poems of no importance, some non-
fictional prose pieces interesting for their autobiographical touches, and
aquickspateofastutebookreviews.Hisfirstnovel,RedHarvest,depicts
American corruption in a sharp focus he never essentially altered. The
clevernessofsuchlateshortstoriesas“AlbertPastoratHome”and“Night
Shade” indicates that he suffered no diminution of talent although he
was about to turn inactive.
After 1934, Hammett survived for another quarter of a century; how-
ever, he wrote little, outlived his talent, and suffered from alcoholism,
tuberculosis, and the sick effects of careless womanizing. He once criti-
cized himself for “laziness, drunkenness, and illness.” His influence on
other writers, however, and on writers for the moviesandtelevision,has
survived to this day.
Above all others, including Raymond Chandler, “Ellery Queen,” and
James M. Cain, Hammett towers as the artist primarily responsible for
the fast-track development of the American hard-boiled detective novel
and short story. Chandler wrote in The Simple Art of Murder that “Ham-
mett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons,
not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-
wrought dueling pistols, curare, and tropical fish. He put these people
down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the
x PREFACE
language they customarily used for these purposes....He wrote scenes
that seemed never to have been written before.”
Hammett has a secure place in American culture for elevatingmeretri-
cious pulp fiction to the level of slick fiction and then to that of fiction
respected by middle-highbrow readers eager to follow the well-crafted
melodramatic action of real-life characters, often spattered by life. Ham-
mett’s most unforgettable character is not Sam Spade, despite his being
popularized by Humphrey Bogart’s superb rendition in John Huston’s
1941 film noir based on The Maltese Falcon. Hammett’s premier char-
acter is surely the Continental Op, narrator and hero of the novels Red
Harvest and The Dain Curse, and some twenty-seven short stories. The
Op,asthisout-of-shapebuttough,stoical,andunnamedprivatedetective
is called, typically enters a scene and cleans it up according to his own
hard-to-define moral code. He cheerfully uses others, often innocent, to
solve his assignments; and at the climax one wonders how clean the
survivors are—or will remain. This is because Hammett, like his Opera-
tive, had a bleak world view. If it was more stormy than sunshiny in the
1920s, when he first expressed it, how much more apt is it now that the
next millennium has slouched into our ken? His fiction in the 1920s did
not roar, it snarled. His West in the 1920s was not that of the popular
oatersthen,whentheirheroescould“GoWest”andberegenerated.The
Big Crash and the Great Depression threw their gloom and doom over
Hammett’s dramatis personae both before 1929 and on into the 1930s.
A possible blur in Hammett’s bleak world view lies in his portrayal of
women. They are usually suspect when sleazy, and even more oftensus-
pect when sexy. An element surprising to some readers is his inclusion
of 1920s White Russians in his fiction.
Hammett came by his knowledge of crime and criminal argot in the
School of Hard Knocks. He had a difficult childhood, domineered by an
unpleasant father, left school earlier than he probably would have liked,
held a variety of jobs, and became a Pinkerton detective and then a sol-
dier. Hollywood and easy money spoiled him, but not completely—he
often violated his contracts, ran off with his advances, and spent with an
abandon best defined as idiotic and self-destructive. If, as someoneonce
said, a good writer needs an itch to scratch, Hammett suffered most of
his life from psychological gleet.
He piled up an imposing list of friends and acquaintances. Not the
least of them were Fatty Arbuckle,* Gary Cooper, William Faulkner, Ben
Hecht,* Ernest Hemingway,* Lillian Hellman,* Alfred A. Knopf,* Patricia
Neal, Dorothy Parker,* Hunt Stromberg, and NathanaelWest.*(Asterisks
indicate the existence of separate entries in this volume.) But sooner or
later he ignored, insulted, or otherwise lost most of them.
I hope that A Dashiell Hammett Companion, which is designed as a
handy reference volume, will tempt the casual reader to make or renew
an acquaintance with Hammett’s work. I also hope that it will enable