There's very little I can add to what's been said about
Hammett's book, but that's never stopped me before. I just
wanted to chime in with my contribution before the month is
out.
The oft-repeated legend (it even turns up in Eddie Muller's
history of film noir, DARK CITY) is that Huston 'wrote' the
screen adaptation by having his secretary retype Hammett's
novel in screenplay format. There are enough deviations from
the text to make me think that's an apocryphal story. It
probably says too much about me that the dropped scenes,
particularly the episode with Gutman's daughter, always feel
off to me when I read them. I can't tell if that's because
they're not in the movie, or because Huston was on to
something.
The "extremely objective third person style" that Jim Doherty
mentions makes Spade inscrutable at best and unlikable at
worst, but he's never less than compelling. Maybe it's the
fact that so much contemporary fiction is lousy with
psychology, but it felt bracing to go back to a book where
you're asked to judge characters on the basis of their
actions alone.
Vince Keenan www.vincekeenan.com Pop culture, high and low,
past and present. One day at a time.
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