Dashiell Hammett

Samuel Dashiell Hammett (Saint Mary's County (Maryland), 27 May 1894 – New York City, 10 January 1961) was an American writer. His best-known book is the hard-boileddetective novel The Maltese Falcon (1930), whose 1941 film adaptation one of the first true classics in the film noirgenre was.

Dashiell left school when he was thirteen years old, and then travelled and worked in the United States. After the first world war (1914-1918), he was for eight years a private detective, an experience that provided much of the material for his novels. The first two, Red Harvest(1929) and The Dain Curse (1929) were an instant success. In 1930 The Maltese Falcon Hammett introduced his best known character, Sam Spade, the prototype of the hard detective that Dashiell the trend continued.

Dashiell Hammetts career as a writer began in 1922 with the publication of The Parthian Shot, that a very short story in the literary magazine The Smart Set was published. A total of 60 short stories, he published 5 novels -including The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man -a few poems, and a number of non-fiction works and book reviews. From 1934 until his death in 1961 very few wrote Hammett. He rested on his laurels, suffered from alcoholism and tuberculosis (for which he was hospitalized in 1919), and was a notoriously womanizing. By selling the film rights to his books he could lead a luxurious life. In 1937 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the rights for The Thin Man, for example, for $ 40,000, and in 1957, the Court his tax liability in an amount of 140.795, $ 96. ==Work[ Edit] == A selection of his works:

==Filmography[ Edit] ==
 * Red Harvest (1929)
 * The Dain Curse (1929)
 * The Maltese Falcon (1930)
 * The Glass Key (1931)
 * The Thin Man (1934)
 * The Big Knockover
 * 1931- City Streets -Director: Rouben Mamoulian (with Gary Cooper and Sylvia Sidney)
 * 1934- The Thin Man -directed by w. s. Van Dyke (with William Powell and Myrna Loy)
 * 1936- Satan with a Lady (based on The Maltese Falcon)-Director: William Dieterle (with Bette Davis)
 * 1936- After the Thin Man -directed by w. s. Van Dyke (with William Powell, Myrna Loy and James Stewart)
 * 1939- Another Thin Man -directed by w. s. Van Dyke (mit und William Powell Myrna Loy)
 * 1941- The Maltese Falcon -Director: John Huston (Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre)
 * 1942- The Glass Key -(with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake)
 * 1990- Miller's Crossing (based on Red Harvest and The Glass Key)-Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (with Gabriel Byrne and Albert Finney)
 * 2002- The House on Turk Street -Director: Bob Rafelson (with Samuel l. Jackson and Milla Jovovich)