Comments on: A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: DASHIELL HAMMETT – The Big Knockover (1966).

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:33:39 +0000

Woman in the Dark is not an Op story (I couldn’t tell if you thought it was or were merely commenting on it’s not being in any of the omnibus editions of the novels), but a short novel Hammett wrote for a film that starred Ralph Bellamy as an artist who gets involved with a girl on the run. I think it may also have run in one of the slicks of the era. The film was available on VHS and the book should be easy to find on the Net. Minor Hammett, but worth reading.

There is also a lost Hammett film, Rouben Mamoulian’s City Streets (1931) with Gary Cooper and Sylvia Sidney based on Hammett’s screen story.

By: Randy Cox

Randy Cox — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:31:06 +0000

Just in case anyone wondered what happened when I started The Big Knockover over lunch last Friday … I finished the book in the wee hours this morning and am planning to read the Steven Marcus edition of The Continental Op (1974) and then follow that by reading the stories in the nine digest collections or Dell paperbacks (edited by Ellery Queen) that don’t appear in either The Big Knockover or The Continental Op. (The only title I don’t have in the “collected edition” is Woman in the Dark, but I have most of the stories in other sources … I haven’t checked abebooks to see what copies are going for.)

Exciting stuff though I kept losing track of who was who and what was happening as well as marveling at the dialogue. Hard to believe some of these stories are 80 or 90 years old!

Chandler’s short stories and novels were made available in two volumes from Hamish Hamilton and the novels in two more, but where is the definitve Hammett? Does anyone know the fate of a project edited by Vince Emery of San Francisco that began in 2005 with a stout collection called Dashiell Hammett: Lost Stories?

Now let’s go see what others are saying on this blog about Hammett’s novels!

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:34:01 +0000

I, for one, would certainly snap up a definitive edition of the Op stories, especially if it included a good study of them and presented them in chronological order. The best stories are fairly easy to find, but I don’t see why they haven’t been collected the way Chandler’s complete short stories have.

The trouble with the Op collections that are out there is they tend to include the same stories with only minor exceptions. I understood when Hellman was alive that she kept a lot of what she considered lesser Hammett out of print, but she’s been gone quite a while and I know there would be a market for a one or two volume collection of all the Op stories, the two novellas, and the two novels.

There is a good deal more variety as to setting and plot to the Op stories than you might expect (the Op not only goes out West, but ends up an revolution in one story), and with a writer as major as Hammett it’s hard to imagine why no one has tackled such a project. Several recent collections have included rare Hammett stories, but you know there is a market for the Op tales in handy and complete edition.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:41:21 +0000

Maybe I’ll drive over and join you for one of those Friday lunches, Randy. If I were to leave here on a Wednesday, I might get there in time — if I didn’t stop to sleep along the way.

In any case, enjoy the book!

By: Randy Cox

Randy Cox — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:14:03 +0000

I think you people have just convinced me that I should read this collection in its entirety — even though there are several other books on my current “to be read” stack. Maybe I’ll take my copy with me when I have my usual Friday lunch at the Tavern today.

By: Curt

Curt — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:44:12 +0000

I was looking for an OP collection last year and was surprised too to see there was no definitive, complete one.

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:01:49 +0000

The Dell’s are gems, but so delicate I hate to open them. I haven’t looked at the prices recently, but they used to be pretty steep for paperbacks.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:54:17 +0000

I don’t believe I have all the digest collections from Jonathan Press and so on, even today, though I did pick up a couple from Walter Albert at this year’s PulpFest. Back in ’66, when I bought the hardcover collection, I’m not sure if I had all the Dell’s or not.

But I don’t think so. I don’t think I found those until I moved to CT in ’69. I don’t even think I knew they existed in 1966. Those Dell books are gems.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:40:37 +0000

Sorry, I didn’t buy THE BIG KNOCKOVER because I’d already scarfed up all those stories in the Dell editions I got at that depraved bookstore mentioned in an earlier post.

By: Dave Lewis

Dave Lewis — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:31:42 +0000

There was also a Jonathan Press digest titled “The Big Knockover” – a reprint of the Bestseller Mystery digest “$106,000 Blood Money.”

I must agree with David. It’s both amazing and sad that all the Op stories have yet to be collected in one or more volumes.