Soft-boiled noir with artifice around its edges

 HAMMETT (1982)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A crime story involving "Black Mask" writer and former Pinkerton detective Dashiell Hammett is ripe for some juicy noirish twists. After all, it is not simply stories that Hammett wrote for "Black Mask" magazine - this is the creator of such definitive mystery novels such as "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man." Being a detective seems like a prime example for his writing - they are inextricably linked. Wim Wenders' "Hammett" is out to explore that dynamic and perhaps show how art imitates life, yet life is so much more cruel. Some of that survives in this unbalanced film and some of it does not.

Frederic Forrest plays the tough, chain-smoking alcoholic writer, Hammett, seen typing away at his latest story involving some business with pearls. A shootout occurs at a waterfront in his story, but maybe nobody dies. Nope, someone does, shot by a man while a femme fatale might be ruminating on double-crossing someone. It all plays out as artificial and, to honest, did not seem hard-boiled to me but what do I know. Hammett, suffering from an early onset of tuberculosis, lives alone in a San Francisco apartment. He's called back to duty as a detective by an old friend of his, Jimmy Ryan (Peter Boyle) to investigate a missing Asian prostitute named Crystal (Lydia Lei, who disappeared from movies and TV back in 1988). This investigation leads to Chinatown, stag films, photo negatives of sexual acts amongst the powerful elite and some other lurid details. 

The mystery of "Hammett" is not nearly as exciting as the stylistic flourishes - the dissolves, the fade-outs, the chiaroscuro lighting patterns, the studio-set mood and much more. My issue is that the whole film seems artificial, so much so that I half-expected this to be a parody of 1940's film noir. Some of the dialogue is not as crisp or half as clever as anything coming from Hammett's own novels (or the classic "The Maltese Falcon") - the whole film feels like Film Noir 101 with cliched lines like "Give it to me straight." The imposing style is there but the film is too obviously studio-bound - nothing seems real or realistically or naturally set. Originally, Wim Wenders shot the film on actual locations and American Zoetrope studios went nuts (yes, that includes producer Francis Ford Coppola) and the whole film was completely reshot. Knowing Wenders' penchant for actual locations (see his "The American Friend", a different sort of neo noir), everything here just smacks of appearing completely unreal. The interiors are far more imaginatively portrayed, including Hammett's messy apartment. Otherwise, we seem to be in a world imagined by Hammett, though there is no distinction between his writing and the real world other than reality is tougher to digest.  

"Hammett" does have strong solid support from Frederic Forrest, who truly looks like the actual author; Marilu Henner as the dame who loves scotch and is Hammett's neighbor; Peter Boyle, a chameleon actor, who can intimidate and project deviousness; Roy Kinnear as a Sydney Greenstreet-type; David Patrick Kelly as some sort of would-be assassin whose tip-toeing shoes can also intimidate, and finally Elisha Cook, Jr. in his last role ever as a loyal taxi driver. Along with a lush, memorable score by John Barry, "Hammett" is definitely worthwhile for mystery buffs and devotees of Hammett. I just think it is more soft-boiled than anything else.