“When a Man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. And it happens we’re in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it’s–it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.”
Sam Spade
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
The Sources
The detective story was essentially invented by Edgar Allen Poe who was a direct influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. His detective, C. Auguste Dupin can be seen reflected in both Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. The first person narrator being a friend of the detective, Dr. Watson for Holmes and Captain Hastings for Poirot, the bumbling police inspector, and the trademark minor details that only the detective can see are all lynchpins carried on by Doyle and Christie. With the success that Poe had on the publication of his Dupin stories, it is hard to understand why he did not feel as the public did at the time. He felt that they were a minor achievements and that they were something he wrote to amuse himself, but he did not regard them as serious writing. Doyle also wrote his mysteries as a reprieve from his more serious writing, and considered killing Holmes off very early on; unfortunately for him, the public was not in agreement, and when he killed off Holmes there was an outcry that led him to bring the detective back in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Like most literary forms, Film Noir developed out of an existing style of writing. Mostly pulp fiction and detective stories, but they were different from what had come before them. They were dark and gritty and dealt with the fears and travails of ordinary people. Unlike the mysteries of the past where the butler probably did it, these were stories set in the streets of the city; in the bars and cafes and clubs of the metropolis’ shadows. Holmes’ cocaine was replaced by a whiskey bottle, and Dr. Watson by a dead partner that had to be avenged. Some of the writers became well known to the general public: Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and most notably, Dashiell Hammett.
Pulp magazines were not taken very seriously until one called Black Mask appeared. Edited by the famous H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan in 1920, it became more prestigious than other publications of its type. It was quickly taken over by its publishers when the original editors lost interest. The new editor took the magazine very seriously and held the contributors to high standards. The contribution made by Black Mask to the eventual rise of Film Noir cannot be underestimated; Showcasing writers like Hammett, Paul Cain, Roger Torrey, Earl Stanley Gardner, Fredrick Nebel, and Raymond Chandler the hard boiled detective story flowered like a black rose.
Dashiell Hammett was regarded as the most important writer of the hard-boiled school of writing; Raymond Chandler said that Hammett had taken, “murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley.” He was a prolific writer and produced thirty short stories in a two year span. All but two of the thirty early short stories were published in the famous, Black Mask magazine from 1928 to 1930. It is still considered the most prestigious mystery publication and has been revived and can be ordered at: https://blackmaskmagazine.com/
His writings include the novels: Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man. The Maltese Falcon remains one of the most well known of the Film Noirs based on his writing. His Sam Spade was a blueprint for the quintessential hard-boiled detective; brought to life by Humphry Bogart in one of his most imitated characterizations. The following year, The Glass Key was released starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
Both of these films made a powerful impact on the public. Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake had a strong screen chemistry and would be reunited in This Gun for Hire (1942), The Black Dalia (1946), and Saigon (1948). Bogart also starred in Raymond Chandler’s, The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall and Martha Vickers (1946). Bogart became as much a part of Film Noir as the black and white photography and stylized dialogue.
NEXT:
Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Cornell Woolrich
