I’ll be hitting the Tenderloin Museum once again on July 13 — hey, just three days before their second anniversary on July 16 — to talk Dashiell Hammett for awhile.
Hammett, pretty much the most famous writer to have made his name as a resident of the hood.
After the talk they’ll be showing the first of the Thin Man flicks, ever popular — but of course Nick and Nora and Asta are off in New York City for that caper.
To keep it kind of local, as part of my remarks I need to pick out some moments from the first movie version of The Maltese Falcon from 1931. Pre-code stuff. I’m thinking the bed-stripping scene. The one or two shots filmed in town — actually shot on the edge of the TL.
And I guess I’m going to have to pull a few minutes of Dwight Frye being brought in to sell the character of little Wilmer Cook for the first time on screen.
If you’re a regular on the Mean Streets, you’ll remember that Hammett encountered the crook he based Wilmer on — The Midget Bandit — when he was working as an operative for Pinkerton’s right here in the burg.
You can get more info and tix off eventbrite, and they’ve announced it on Facebook, too. Ought to be fun — well, between me and William Powell and Myrna Loy and Skippy as Asta, I guess it is guaranteed to be fun.
And if things work out, plotting is going on behind closed doors to spring another wild Hammett/Tenderloin treat your way later in the year.
