American Zoetrope/Universal .
R4 . COLOR . 93 mins .
M15+ . PAL
Feature
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Best known by the wider world (i.e. those who aren’t obsessed by detective fiction) as the creator of the legendary character Sam Spade, Samuel Dashiell Hammett was the definitive author of the kind of hard-boiled detective stories that these days have almost passed into the realms of parody. He only wrote five novels - The Maltese Falcon among them - but those along with his many magazine stories ensured his place in literary history.
Hammett at work. Note wall'o'blood behind him.
Hammett - not a biography, but rather a fictionalised tale adapted from a novel by Joe Gores - originally went into production in 1980, but was massively delayed when director Wim Wenders (on his first American film) fell out with producer Francis Ford Coppola over the direction of the movie. Coppola reshot much of it, and what was eventually released in 1983 was more a Coppola film than a Wenders one - reportedly only 30 percent of what ended up on the screen was Wenders’ work. The German director, by this stage attaining huge international success with Paris, Texas, had already gotten some revenge for his baptism by Hollywood fire in 1982's The State of Things.
In Hammett, the conceit is that the author (who did spend some time as a private detective) gets dragged into a complex web of crime and murder involving abduction, prostitution, murder - and lots of drinking. In fact, there’s so much drinking going on in this film it’s almost comedic, making The Secret Life of Us seem like an advertisement for abstinence by comparison. “What do you do when you go home at night, Tom,” Hammett asks a character at one point, “throw up?” Tom’s response in unequivocal. “I drink, Samuel. I drink a whole lot. Then I throw up.”
The deadpan delivery of such dialogue will go down a treat with fans of the genre, but for the rest of us, Hammett is decidedly slow going. The film looks wonderful - the production design and photography are first-rate, and the feel of being transported back to Hollywood’s version of the 1930s is undeniable. But there’s really not much story going on here; it’s an atmosphere piece that gets so deeply involved in exploring its milieu it forgets the one golden rule of moviemaking - namely, to give the audience something or someone to care about.
Video
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Not a scene from an early Tori Amos video clip.
Despite its age and troubled history, Hammett scores an absolutely beautiful video transfer for this DVD release. Another one of American Zoetrope’s laboriously detailed restoration jobs, this 16:9 enhanced transfer (at the slightly opened-up ratio of 1.78:1) was likely taken from a high definition master and we’ll guarantee you the movie’s never looked better. Darker scenes tend to falter in terms of depth and shadow detail - this was undoubtedly intentional - but there’s lusciousness aplenty here. Just look at the rich colour saturation on those red lamps, the warm brown hues of the sets… a brilliant transfer, intelligently done.
Audio
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An early Dolby Stereo (i.e. Dolby Surround) soundtrack, this was considered a benchmark for its time in terms of quality, and that stands it in good stead on DVD. While obviously limited by the technology of the day, this surround-encoded (and flagged) audio track is extremely clean, almost totally free of tape hiss and other nasties. John Barry’s music score comes up wonderfully, too. Don’t expect much in the way of surround activity - it’s not that sort of movie.
However, there’s one major problem here - for great big slabs of the film, the audio is completely out of synch with the picture, with one scene (around the 78 minute mark) showing this off embarrassingly, the audio noticeably ahead of the actors’ mouth movements. This problem seems to vary in noticeability throughout, and sometimes doesn’t seem to be there at all, so maybe it was something that was introduced during the original video transfer. But either way, it’s a disappointing blot on an otherwise superlative transfer.
Extras
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With all the drama that this film’s production caused, it would have been great to hear a commentary from either Coppola or Wenders. But no such luck - the only extra here is a full-frame theatrical trailer that’s showing its age.
Overall
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It looks lovely and it means well, but Hammett simply doesn’t have enough going for it to engage the audience. As a study in cinematic cleverness it’s undeniably worthy, but as entertainment, it’s borderline boring. Wenders fans hoping for the man’s distinctive touch should look elsewhere.
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