Samuel Dashiell Hammett played a huge part in popularising the hardboiled detective stories which were responsible for changing the existing style of crime fiction in the 1920s and also strongly influenced the works of certain other prominent crime writers who followed him (e.g. Raymond Chandler, James M Cain etc.). Hammett's characters and stories were largely drawn from his own experiences as a detective working for the Pinkerton Agency and his hardboiled style was almost certainly a product of his Pinkerton's training which emphasised the need for agents to remain totally objective at all times to ensure that their judgement was not impaired by emotional involvement with the victims of crimes etc. As Pinkerton agents were also encouraged to do whatever was necessary to bring criminals to justice without being too concerned about normal standards of decency or morality, it's quite likely that this inspired the cynicism and moral ambiguity that also featured in his work.The movie "Hammett" (1982) is essentially an homage to the kind of fiction that provided a great deal of material for the films noir that influenced German director Wim Wenders so strongly during his childhood and focuses on the author's career where he'd already left the Pinkerton Agency and was selling his stories to crime magazines such as "Black Mask". It provides a fictionalised account of how he might have reluctantly got drawn into an investigation being carried out by an old friend and by so doing, gained the inspiration he needed to write one of his most successful novels.In San Francisco in 1928, crime-writer Dashiell Hammett (Frederic Forrest), (known to his friends as Sam), has just completed his latest story when he's visited by Jimmy Ryan (Peter Boyle) who was his mentor during his time at Pinkerton's. Jimmy taught Sam everything he knows about detective work and is now working on a missing person's case involving a Chinese girl who's been a victim of the slave trade and could be in imminent danger. Sam doesn't want to get involved but feels obliged to because, in the past, Jimmy saved his life by taking a bullet that was intended for him.The investigation takes the two men into the dangerous Chinatown underworld where Sam quickly finds that he hasn't forgotten some of the old skills that he learned at Pinkerton's. Things don't go as planned though when Sam loses his latest manuscript and Jimmy has to work alone to track down the young Crystal Ling (Lydia Lei). Trying to solve the mystery of Crystal's disappearance leads to brushes with corrupt cops and beatings before Sam discovers some pornography, prostitution and blackmail rackets that involve a number of wealthy people in influential positions in the city.Hammett is depicted as a laconic, heavy drinker who suffers alarming bouts of coughing because he's a TB sufferer. Before getting involved in the Chinatown investigation, he'd used Jimmy as a hero in his stories and his attractive downstairs neighbour Kit (Marilu Henner) as a key character called Sue Alabama. During his time in Chinatown however, he becomes involved with a whole series of people who are immediately recognisable as ones that later feature in his best known works.Despite the movie's well-documented production problems, the end-result looks well-directed, skilfully photographed and successfully evokes the atmosphere of the classic noirs. Its main deficiencies are a shortage of the witty repartee that's normally a feature of these types of stories and also a lack of realism that's caused by virtually everything being filmed in the studios. Frederic Forrest makes a convincing Hammett and the supporting cast is also very strong.

A fictionalized account of Dashiell Hammett getting involved in a scenario like something from one of his own stories. Wim Wenders constructs a neo-noir that's light on the "neo". No post-modern winks at the audience, no updating the sex and violence to the modern standards. Except for the color photography, one utterance of "shit" and slightly more sexual suggestion than you could get away with the time, it feels like something straight out of the era. The snappy dialogue, the canted angles, the rough and tumble characters, the twisty plot (more Chandler than Hammett, really, but whatever). The blatantly artificial sets are perhaps a little too self-conscious but it doesn't ever get too kitschy. Terrific score and very appropriate casting including Freddie Forrest, Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner and Elisha Cook. The biggest problem is that the film doesn't have a great storyline to hang its fedora on. It's pretty much just an exercise in pure duplication. But it's a fun time for lovers of the genre.

I didn't really expect my first forray into Wenders to be a fictionalized pulpy detective story homage to the patriarch of pulpy detective stories, writer Dashiell Hammett, produced by Coppola's Zoetrope Studios, but there you have it. Strangely, I'm not even sure this is a Wenders film in anything but name, as Coppola himself allegedly had to reshoot one and a half years after Wenders wrapped shooting significant portions of a film his backers found very 'dissatisfying'. Par the course for a film that had to undergo so much revamping to please money men, Hammett is a mess, albeit an interesting mess.If the premise sounds good enough, pulpy writer Dashiell Hammett being drawn one last time into his detective past as a favour to a former Pinkerton colleague whom he helps investigate the disappearance of an underage Chinese prostitute, the script never quite fulfills its potential. Not because it's sprawling and convoluted (the best noirs usually are), but because it's just that for all the wrong reasons, and on top of that half-baked and unconvincing. At times it plays almost like a Dick Tracy caricature of noir plots.Most interesting thing about it however are the meta- aspects of the story, probably what drew Wenders into the fold (apart from his fascination with American genre cinema). Writer Hammett playing detective Hammett, the lines between reality and fiction blurring dangerously as he does. But the film never runs with it, as though afraid it might alienate a mainstream audience that likely had little vested interest in such a film to begin with.The opening sequence shows what might have been: having just finished his latest novel, Hammett lies down playing out the ending in his head; after a violent coughing fit, he staggers back into his living room only to find waiting for him the hero of his book. Is Hammett hallucinating in the grip of alcohol and tuberculosis or does he base his fictional characters on people he knows? The ending tries to bring all that back full circle but it's too little too late. The movie has dawdled a little too much in squeaky clean Zoetrope sets trying to pass for 1920's San Francisco, has tripped over the needlessly convoluted mess it creates for its characters. It's still a fun watch, the cast is populated by familiar faces (three Twin Peaks actors, Sam Fuller, Elisha Cook Jr.), and Frederic Forrest gives a good show. Interesting curio, not much else, Hammett fans will probably dig it significantly more than me.

Hammett was produced by the sadly, now defunct Zoetrope Studios of Francis Ford Coppola. Hammett is a great movie that will most likely achieve cult status over time, especially with the folks who love the old 30's and 40's type crime and mystery movies. If you are a fan of this genre, you will most certainly notice the scenes which are very similar to scenes from the Maltese Falcon, but that is understandable as Dashiell Hammett penned the novel and Hammett is a who-dunnit which places the writer right in the thick of things as an old friend and mentor returns to San Francisco to seek help from Hammett played by Fredrick Forrest (The Rose). The old friend and P.I., Jimmy Ryan, played by Peter Boyle (Joe) seeks Hammett's help in locating one, Crystal Ling played by Lydia Lei aka Lydia Lei Kayahara. Crystal ran away from a brothel owned by Fong Wei Tau played by Michael Chow. I won't go any further with this as I don't wish to add any spoilers to this review, but I will say that Marilu Henner (Taxi) plays Hammett's neighbor and drinking buddy, Kit Conger/Sue Alabama. While she doesn't have the biggest part in the world, she does a good job with the part she does have and the sweater beret and black shiny coat that she was wearing at the end of the movie, well, made me long for the good old days. Other old time favorites show up here as well. Roy Kinnear plays English Eddie Hagedorn and Elisha Cook Jr.plays the taxi driver Eli. Hammett's nemesis in this movie is Lt. O'Mara played by R.G.Armstrong, while the ever present bad-boy punk is played to perfection by David Patrick Kelly (The Warriors)(Last Man Standing). Sylvia Sidney plays Donaldina Cameron and is only given a small part as is Elmer Kline who plays Doc Fallon. Jack Nance plays Gary Salt. The movie goes back and forth between what our main character has written and what is actually happening, but the two are pretty much the same. Dark and brooding as this film is, it is still worth your time and it is available, at least for now, so grab a your copy while you can as it is worth it to have it in your collection. Too bad that it seems that Lydia Lei only had an 11 year run in movies and TV. I thought she played her character wonderfully. According to the information on IMDb she started in 1977 and her last entry was 1988.