Rent Hammett (1982)
3.3 of 5 from 63 ratings
1h 34min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- San Francisco - Crime novelist Dashiell Hammett (Frederic Forrest) is investigating the mysterious disappearance of beautiful Chinese cabaret actress Crystal Ling (Lydia Lei). Hammett shortly realises that he's not the only one looking for her and that his investigation could compromise local figures linked to pornography traffic.
- Actors:
- Frederic Forrest, Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner, Roy Kinnear, Elisha Cook Jr., Lydia Lei, R.G. Armstrong, Richard Bradford, Michael Chow, David Patrick Kelly, Sylvia Sidney, Jack Nance, Elmer Kline, Royal Dano, Samuel Fuller
- Directors:
- Wim Wenders
- Producers:
- Ronald Colby, Don Guest, Fred Roos
- Writers:
- Joe Gores, Dennis O'Flaherty
- Studio:
- StudioCanal
- Genres:
- Drama
- Collections:
- Action & Adventure, All the Twos: 1972-2012, Getting to Know..., People of the Pictures, Remembering Julian Sands and Frederic Forrest, Roeg and Bertolucci: Remembering the Masters, A Brief History of Film..., The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to: Wim Wenders, Top Film and TV Detectives: Guide to Screen Sleuth
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Reviews (2) of Hammett
Pulp Metafiction - Hammett review by Count Otto Black
Dashiell Hammett, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective story as we know it, certainly knew what he was writing about. Unlike Raymond Chandler or nearly all his other less famous rivals, Hammett had genuinely worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and apparently he had to do things that led to his resignation and never rested easily on his conscience. So a fictional tale in which this real author puts down his pen, picks up a gun, and tries to act like one of his own characters would actually be very plausible.
The trouble is, this isn't it. Wim Wenders, a director most famous for a movie about a glum angel in a trench-coat falling in love with a trapeze artist, isn't noted for his gritty realism. And Francis Ford Coppola, whose degree of participation isn't made clear by the two extremely non-specific production credits he gets, but whose visual style is all over this film, sometimes gets carried away to the point where the sets out-act the cast, as happens in "Dracula" and "Hugo". The result is that this slightly peculiar movie looks fabulous, but you get the feeling so much effort went into recreating the bustle and squalor of pre-war downtown San Francisco that character and plot development were sometimes neglected.
It's one of those films where you keep going: "Hey, it's Elisha Cook Jr. who played Wilmer in 'The Maltese Falcon' with Humphrey Bogart way back in 1941 playing some other bloke!" rather than being gripped by the complicated and confusing story, in which everyone who matters appears and disappears more or less at random, and everybody's double-crossing everybody else. This is of course exactly what happens in Hammett's most famous novel "The Maltese Falcon", and naturally this film's epilogue shows our hero starting work on that novel, which by now we know was inspired by the adventure we've just seen, except that he's going to rewrite everything the way he thinks it should have been, not the way it really was. There are two problems with this. Firstly, the obvious one that if you're familiar with "The Maltese Falcon" (and if you're watching this movie you probably are), you keep being distracted because you've spotted a detail which is going to end up in the novel. And secondly, "The Maltese Falcon" is so well-written that if the plot's a bit of a muddle it doesn't matter. Frankly, you couldn't say the same about this movie.
I like this genre and I wanted to like this film, but it doesn't quite come off. It reminded me a lot of Roman Polanski's "Chinatown", with the crucial difference that in that movie, as in "The Maltese Falcon", the larger-than-life characters dominate the story. Whereas here, so much attention is being paid to both the way everything looks and the necessity of including sly references to novels and movies other than the one we're watching now that we notice how flat the characters are, and how little the hero is actually accomplishing as the contrived plot leads him around by the nose. It's not terrible, but I'd definitely call it a well-intentioned misfire.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Mean Streets - Hammett review by Steve
If this is remembered at all, it is for the troubled production. It was made twice, first on location and again on the Zoetrope soundstage. For a while there was a rumour Francis Coppola directed the second version, though Wim Wenders says not. It was bombed by the critics and soon forgotten. But perhaps this was before its time...
We now call this fan fiction. Maybe it's overreach to claim it was influential because no-one saw it, but today this is an established formula. It imagines what might have inspired Dashiell Hammett to write his classic novel, The Maltese Falcon (1930). The ex-Pinkerton detective is lured back onto the mean streets to find a runaway.
Reviewers complained the plot is a mess, but it doesn't matter. We just need to spot the connections. Sure, some pre-knowledge of either the novel or John Huston's screen version (1941) is essential, but this is amply rewarded. There's a stunning period production in the neo-noir style with chewy hardboiled dialogue- and a voice over.
Frederic Forrest is inspired casting as Hammett. There are glorious cameos, including Elisha Cook Jr. from the Huston film. And Sylvia Sidney! John Barry's jazz score isn't classic noir, but brings the atmosphere. For fans of the writer/genre this is a sugary treat and reappraisal is long overdue. Such a shame the original is destroyed.
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