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: Black Mask
Sinister Cinema: Gaudy Wilmerian Patter
Pulps in the Movies! On Sale Every Wednesday! In his exciting series renowned pulp expert John Locke has hit them short and sweet, the slam-bam thanks for holding a pulp, m’am posts. He’s gone back into the silent era. He’s … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Lit
Tagged Black Mask, Bogie, Cap Shaw, Elisha Cook Jr., Grand Central Murder, John Locke, MGM, Oscar, Paul Cain, Peter Ruric, Pulps in the Movies, Tom Conway, Van Heflin, Warner Brothers, Wilmer Cook
Sinister Cinema: Perry Palms Pulps; or, Mason Manhandles Magazines
Another installment of the epic run of Pulps in the Movies. On Sale Every Wednesday. Brought to you by that renowned and eagle-eyed pulp expert John Locke. In this Case of the Curious Lawyer, however, we’re easing over from actual … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Lit
Tagged Black Mask, Erle Stanley Gardner, John Locke, Perry Mason, Pulps in the Movies, Ranch Romances, Raymond Burr
Rediscovered: Lighting Up with Lester Dent
You know Brian Leno. The guy’s got a competitive edge. He’s already duked it out mano a mano with Kevin Cook a few times with samples from their autograph collections, notably the Cornell Woolrich face-off back in August. When Kevin … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Woolrich in The Mask
Another year down on These Mean Streets! How about we go out with a sharp Kachow! from the ever-ready roscoe? The noted book and pulp collector Kevin Cook decided to dive into his holdings and dig out the autograph of … Continue reading
Hammett: v. Carroll John Daly
Digging around in old partially mocked-up posts, I found another one which appears to be from circa late 2016 or early 2017: Last October I got in a note from hardboiled pulp hound Terry Zobeck, in which he reported: Today’s mail brought … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged Black Mask, Carroll John Daly, Race Williams, Terry Zobeck, The Snarl of the Beast
Hammett: “If I Had Been a Black Mask Reader in 1926”
I told John Locke that once his post on Hammett’s early years in the writing business hit the blog, if he noticed any places where he wanted to tweak a word or whatever, just to let me know and I’d … Continue reading
Hammett: From Poisonville to Red Harvest, “Chapter One”
A couple of months ago I was prowling through the inventory of Mean Streets posts to salvage as yet unpublished material from the backlog. A few tentative ideas that got to skeletal mock-up stage I just deleted — weeding the … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged Black Mask, Frederic Dannay, Jo Hammett, Paul Herman, PulpFest, Red Harvest, Richard Layman, Terry Zobeck, The Big Book of the Continental Op
Hammett Takes on the Writing Racket, by John Locke
Mean Streets readers get a Christmas Treat this year from no less than the pulp authority John Locke, doing a deep-dive into the origins of Hammett’s career as a writer. John made a cool discovery in the forgotten trade magazines … Continue reading
Sinister Cinema: And Why Not Liam Neeson as Marlowe?
Brian Wallace sends me links to stuff all the time. He’s like my man-on-the-internet-street or an all-knowing stool pigeon or something, tracking down every hardboiled mention or rumor of a hardboiled mention. A reboot or new version of ace P.I. … Continue reading
