Monthly Archives: April 2011

Tour: Every Sunday in May

I can’t make it any simpler: you’ll find a Dashiell Hammett Tour each and every Sunday in May. Four hours. Ten bucks. The usual. No reservations needed, just show up with your gumshoes polished, ready to walk.

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Hammett: “Magician” Trackdown

Lately M. P. Shiel has been in the air around here — I’ve been easing my way through the first two of three volumes of the biography of Shiel from the pen of Harold Billings (on the side reading upcoming … Continue reading

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Tour: Banner Ad

I’ve got to give Vince Emery credit for his job publishing the newest edition of the Hammett Tour book — and he tells me that he has taken out a banner ad for the trade paperback printing over on the … Continue reading

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Rediscovered: Fantômas, the Serials

My pal John D. Squires, current honcho of the cult for M. P. Shiel, saw the blurb for Fantômas the other day and popped me the ad above, which tries to hook movie theatres in 1916 into running a film serial … Continue reading

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Frisco Beat: Almost, Elmore

These mean streets have seen some of the best. Dashiell Hammett. Charles Willeford. And we almost had Elmore Leonard, too, according to a new interview. Of his life in the Detroit area, Elmore said, “There’s no reason to move. I thought … Continue reading

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Rediscovered: The Kindle in 1959

For no special reason I got the urge to reread Fritz Leiber’s Change War series, off and on, over the last few weeks, still have at least one or two more to go (since they never all quite saw a … Continue reading

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Frisco Beat: The Pickwick

I hope everyone is surfing frequently over to ReelSF off my Fellow Ops links — the mysterious CitySleuth is knocking out new descriptions of sites from movies, especially noir movies, all the time, featuring great then and now shots. Of special interest … Continue reading

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Frisco Beat: A Century of Fantômas

Okay, I don’t know how this one got put on the calendar, other than via the interest and tireless efforts of Peter Maravelis, teamed up with a horde of local Fantômas fans and no less than the French Embassy — but … Continue reading

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