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
Tag Archives: Bill Arney
Tour: The Kermit Sheets Copy
Grizzled eBay gunhawk Brian Leno told me that a signed copy of an old tour book currently is on the block — Buy It Now for $39.50. First printing of the second edition from 1982. Same printing as the copy I … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, News, Tour
Tagged Autographs, Bill Arney, Book Collecting, Bouchercon, Brian Leno, Hammett Tour Book, Kermit Sheets, PulpFest, Tiny Boyles
Hammett: And Chandler, and Nigel, Bill and Don
Slightly over twenty people did the “just show up and walk the walk” routine for the tour yesterday. I always think of twenty as being the average number of tourists gumshoeing the mean streets on the walk over the years, though … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Lit, Tour
Tagged 891 Post, BBC, Bill Arney, Delicatessen, Dominque Pinon, Dwight Frye, Fatty Arbuckle, Jo Hammett, Mark Murphy, Murphy bed, Nigel Williams, Raymond Chandler
Sinister Cinema: Voice of Noir
How about a few more pics from the gig in the Tenderloin Museum? I was supposed to talk for 30 or 40 minutes about Hammett living in the TL, the 1941 film of The Maltese Falcon and so forth — … Continue reading
Frisco Beat: Reeling in the History
Did a couple of groups by appointment yesterday, got lucky with the brutal winter rains holding off. . . . On one of them the mysterious CitySleuth came along and tossed in some tidbits of film/Frisco history — one was … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Frisco, Tour
Tagged 891 Post, Bill Arney, CitySleuth, Heisenberg, Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Lon Chaney Sr., Mark Murphy, ReelSF, Ruby Skye, Tenderloin Museum, The Big Knockover, The Penalty, Vertigo
Hammett: A Few Notes from a Former Thin Man
Naturally, my post the other day about the first meeting of me and no less than Bill Arney on a tour back in 1982 was noticed by Bill Arney, who says: “Oh, man. “That was my first hat, my first … Continue reading
Hammett: Out of the Past
Do you remember my description in the recent PulpFest report about how a dealer showed me a copy of my 1982 tour book in gray wraps which he had priced at $15? I was going to put it back for … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Tour
Tagged Autographs, Bill Arney, Burritt alley, Hammett Cult in San Francisco, John D. Haefele, Morgan Holmes, PulpFest, Red Harvest, Tom Krabacher
Hammett: Bill Arney on The Lost Detective
Today is the official publication date for Nathan Ward’s new bio of Dashiell Hammett, so to raise a symbolic glass of Bacardi in toast (I’m sure all big fans of The Maltese Falcon will get the reference), let’s have a … Continue reading
Hammett: Reviewer Remorse
Now Terry Zobeck is worried that his review of the new Hammett bio by Nathan Ward — because of a few quibbles he throws in — might not have given a fair account of how much he liked it: I hope … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Frisco, Tour
Tagged 891 Post, Ace Atkins, Art Taylor, Bill Arney, Black Mask, Bogie, David Fechheimer, Jose Hammett, Nathan Ward, Red Harvest, Terry Zobeck, Washington Post
Hammett: And Prohibition
Per my normal Xmas rituals, I’ll be heading up to the dinner table in the hideout of Floyd “Tattoo the Wicked Cross” Salas, but here’s a tidbit to hold down a place under the tree: some casual speculation on Hammett … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco
Tagged 891 Post, Bill Arney, Blaine Act, Floyd Salas, Izzy Einstein, John's Grill, Mark Murphy, New Orleans, Prohibition, Red Harvest, The Maltese Arms, Vince Emery, Volstead Act
