Welcome to a hard-boiled and not without noir blog with news and reviews, occasional outbursts of maniacal Autograph Hound activity, plus archival records from the forty-five year run of The Dashiell Hammett Tour. 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour
1977-2022
Arkham House Ephemera
The Classic Years 1937–1973
Death Lit
Essays and Reviews Selected from Fifty Years of Writing 1974–2024
Willeford
The Book
Category Archives: Dash
Hammett: That Penetrant Fog
Per norm, the clews keep dashing in. Jeopardy! S43E28. October 21. First round. For $600 in the category Tales of the City: “(Sam) Spade paid his fare and left the taxi cab”; this city’s “night-fog, thin, clammy, & penetrant, blurred … Continue reading
Rediscovered: The Op Cracks Jeopardy!
Hammett keeps his hand in the game. Offhand, I don’t recall the Continental Op showing up in Jeopardy! clews before now. Usually it’s Sam Spade or Nick and Nora Charles — or Asta. Sometimes Lillian Hellman or Joe McCarthy. San … Continue reading
Sinister Cinema: Abraham Polonsky — Dangerous Citizen
Tuesday August 18, 7pm — it felt like the meeting of a secret society. Always fun. Eddie Muller of TCM’s Noir Alley sent out an invite to a private screening in the 4-Star on Clement for his new documentary Dangerous … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, DMac, Film, Frisco
Tagged Abraham Polonsky, Domenic Stansberry, Eddie Muller, Eli Wallach, Harry Belafonte, HUAC, John Marr, Julie Lindow, Lester Cole, Murder Can Be Fun, Oscar, Peter Maravelis, Yul Brenner
Hammett: Birthday 132
Today, Hammett’s 132nd birthday. And the guy keeps hanging in. On May 1st he cracked Jeopardy! again. S4E170. In the Double Jeopardy round. Category: Life on TCM. $800 clew: In “The Thin Man” Myrna Loy catches up to her husband … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Gene and Joe
Autograph Hound Saturday. Courtesy Brian Leno, today let’s spotlight a favorite writer here on These Mean Streets. “Some good news,” Brian reports, “I picked up a signed Eugene Cunningham’s Texas Sheriff for 20 bucks. No dj but it supposedly has … Continue reading
Hammett: A Jeopardy! Infiltration
Jeopardy! used a Hammett clew less than a week ago, but the legend and lore can muscle its way in any time. S42 E127, March 3,2026. The Final Jeopardy! shoot-out question in the category 20th Century Movie Memorabilia: In 2025 … Continue reading
Hammett: And Another Dashiell
Everyone else may well know that rocker Alice Cooper has a son named Dashiell Cooper, b. 1985, also a rocker. I just stumbled over the news during casual browsing on the net. No doubt many more celebrities named a kid … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Another Ace from Jeopardy!’s Sam Spade Suit
Or would that be a swig from the Nick & Nora Club Martini? Tournament of Champions Quarter Final, Day Two — 1/20/26 — Jeopardy! S42E97. First round. Category: The Tale that Wags the Dog. For $800: This beloved pooch owned … Continue reading
Hammett: Killer Critic
Will Murray, pulp historian and latter-day Kenneth Robeson, just sent me a link to “a biographical page about a writer who committed suicide a few months after his last book received a scathing review by Dashiell Hammett.” The bio on … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged Doug Anderson, J. Aubrey Tyson, literary suicides, Richard Dalby, Will Murray
Hammett: Jeopardy! Won’t Leave Him Alone
The week ended with Jeopardy! invoking Hammett’s name yet again: S42E90. 1/9/26. A Champions Wildcard showdown. Double Jeopardy round, $2000 slot in the category Adapted for High School: Rian Johnson adapted what he called “the weirdly poetic style of Dashiell … Continue reading
