S I T E M E N U :
A short biography of Dashiell Hammett, followed by Frequently Asked Questions
“The Complete Works of Dashiell Hammett”
A chronology of Hammett’s fiction
The Continental Op: Hammett’s first hard-
Woman in the Dark: Hammett’s lost novel?
A photo tour of “Sam Spade’s apartment” (2003)
Dashiell Hammett Place: another former Hammett residence (2004)
The Flood Building: Hammett’s Pinkerton Detective office (2004)
The Maltese Falcon’s 75th anniversary (2005)
Interview with Hammett scholar Dr. George J. “Rhino” Thompson (2007)
The Dashiell Hammett Suite, Hotel Union Square (2008)
E-
Special thanks to:
Robert Mailer Anderson
Bill Arney
Vince Emery
Don Herron
Richard Layman
Jo Marshall
Eddie Muller
Julie Rivett
and so many others
for their many
contributions to this site.
Entire website ©2003-
RED HARVEST:
THE CONTINENTAL OP GOES “BLOOD SIMPLE”
The small northwestern mining town of Personville has been taken over lock, stock and barrel by gangsters. It’s up to the Continental Op to return “Poisonville” to the decent citizens – if there are any.
The Op systematically turns faction against faction, and they obligingly begin to wipe each other out. As the bloodbath escalates, he discovers – to his own horror – that he’s actually enjoying the carnage.
Red Harvest first appeared in Black Mask, serialized over four issues, spanning October 1927 to January 1928. Hammett reworked it somewhat for hardback publication in February 1929.
With one exception (more about that in a moment), there has never been a movie version of Red Harvest, although several movies have used its plot, without giving credit. These include the samurai adventure Yojimbo, and the spaghetti western Fistful of Dollars. Probably the closest clone of all was Last Man Standing, starring Bruce Willis, which, like Red Harvest, was set in the late 1920s.
The one and only movie in which Red Harvest and Dashiell Hammett were credited as
the source material was a 1978 Spanish language western entitled La ciudad maldita
(which means, more or less, “City of the Damned”), directed by Spanish director Juan
Bosch. According to Jesús A. González, a teacher at the University of Cantabria,
Spain, “the protagonist's name is Op, the city's name is Personville, and other names
and plot lines are kept, adapted to the spaghetti western sub-
SAMPLES OF VARIOUS EDITIONS
Knopf, 1929 (hardback with dust jacket)
Pocket, 1943 (paperback)
Perma, 1956 (paperback)
Penguin, 1963 (paperback)
Dell, 1968 (paperback)
Vintage, 1972 (paperback)
Large Type edition (details unknown)
Pan, 1977 (paperback)
Pan, 1980 (paperback)
Vintage Crime, 1989 (trade paperback)
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1992 (trade paperback)
Orion, 2001(paperback)
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2004 (trade paperback)
Impress, 2012, (hardback)
Orion, 2012 (paperback)
SLIGHT VARIATIONS
Grosset & Dunlap, 1931 (hardback with dust jacket -
World War II Armed Forces edition (paperback)
NON-
Bokforlaget Pan, 1968 (Sweedish)
Alianza Editorial, 1971 (Spanish)
Amphora, 2001 (Russian)
AUDIO EDITIONS
Isis, 1996, Read by William Dufris
Isis, 2000, Read by William Dufris
AudioGO, 2011, Read by Richard Ferrone