Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

(hb; 1929)

From the inside flap

“Blackmail runs rampant in a town policed by badged bootleggers in blue who turn a blind eye to protect the Old Man who runs the town.”

Review

Harvest’s narrator/protagonist (an unnamed Continental Op, who also appears in other Hammett works) goes to Personville─nicknamed Poisonville, because of its shady denizens─to investigate a murder, but ends up getting hired to “clean up” the dangerous, lots-of-crime town. He then utilizes some questionable setups to pit some of the big players against each other to achieve said cleansing.

This is a masterful, complex, immediately gripping and fast-moving work, one of the best novels in the pulp genre. Lots of gunplay, clever twists, dead bodies, quotable dialogue and colorful characters─i.e., elements that Hammett excels at─make this one of my all-time favorite crime reads, one worth reading. This one really packs a punch.

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Several films have resulted from this novel, only one of them a Hammett-credited work.

The first, La ciudad maldita, was released in Italy on November 29, 1978. Juan Borsch directed the film, from a screenplay by him and Alberto de Stefanis.

Chet Bakon played OP. Diana Lorys played Dinah. Roberto Camardiel played Sheriff Noonan. Daniel Martin played Max Thaler.

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Other films, which do not credit Red as a source, include:

Yojimbo (1961; director/co-screenwriter: Akira Kurosawa)

 For a Few Dollars More (1965; director/co-screenwriter: Sergio Leone)

The Last Round (1976, director: Stelvio Massi)

When the Raven Flies (1984, a.k.a. Revenge of the Barbarians)

 Miller’s Crossing (1990; directors: Joel and an uncredited Ethan Coen)

Last Man Standing (1996; director: Walter Hill; stars: Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken)

Just Tell Me When to Cry by Richard Fleischer

(hb; 1993: memoir)

From the back cover

“Richard Fleischer has directed almost fifty films. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Vikings, Compulsion, Doctor Dolittle, The Boston Strangler, Tora!Tora! Tora!, and The New Centurions are only a few of his hits. He first went to Hollywood in 1945 and over the years worked with and for John Wayne, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Robert Mitchum, Rex Harrison, James Mason, Kirk Douglas, Darryl Zanuck, Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston, Jane Russell, Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, and Orson Welles, among others. Richard Fleischer tells of his forty-five plus years in the ego capital of the world by relating a series of the best stories you'll ever hear (and have never heard before) about legendary personalities and how they behaved (and misbehaved) during the course of making a movie.”

Review

Fleischer’s informative account of his filmic dealings in Hollywood and Europe is entertaining, briskly told, hilarious, troubling (e.g., when he dealt with HUAC) and consistently excellent. His writing is reader-friendly with its succinct (line or two) filmmaking explanations, which do not disrupt Cry’s storytelling. This is a great read with a lot of laughs, especially if you are a fan of old-time Hollywood. It is also one of my favorite reads of 2018, one worth owning.