It's time to discuss how I came to find these men and their work.
I first heard about Dashiell Hammett when I watched The Maltese Falcon. I was never interested in pulp detective stories prior to that. But the dialogue in The Maltese Falcon changed that, from the moment I heard Humphrey Bogart utter, "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." I was hooked. (Incidentally, that was the film that made me like Bogart. Before then, he was just someone for James Cagney to kill in all his films, and I always applauded him for doing so.)
When I was at Borders one night, I decided to look for one of Hammett's novels. The first one I came across was The Thin Man. I know people criticize it (which is funny, since the films are so loved), but I really enjoyed it. After that, I decided to try some of his short stories, so I bought The Big Knockover. The more I read Hammett's work, the more I loved it. Eventually, I made my way through all of his novels. My favorite is The Dain Curse, but I think I may be in the minority.
My love of Hammett lead to my interest in film noir, as well. So I think he deserves credit for my discovery of movies like Gilda and The Big Heat. (And going by that logic, my love of Glenn Ford.)
I bought the LoA Crime Novels book because I was hoping they would be as good as Hammett's novels. I haven't gotten around to reading them yet, though. LoA also released a book of Raymond Chandler's work, but I'm not a fan of him. If you do the tiniest bit of research, you'll read that Hammett was a huge inspiration for him. I don't see it. While Hammett's stories always held my interest, I had to force myself to get through Chandler's. And by the time I finished reading whatever was written on the page, I couldn't remember exactly what it was I had just read.
My interest in H.P. Lovecraft also stems from a movie.
In 2003, I was up at some ungodly hour, flipping through channels because I couldn't sleep. (Nothing has changed since then.) I came across In the Mouth of Madness. I had no idea what it was about, but I saw Sam Neill, and thought, "Hey, he was in Jurassic Park!" So, I left it on. (Most people assume my obsession with Sam Neill comes from Jurassic Park. That wasn't the case, because I was young when Jurassic Park came out and all I cared about was Joseph Mazzello. The Sam Neill thing started with In the Mouth of Madness.)
There's a quote in In the Mouth of Madness that, to this day, is one of my favorite quotes ever. It really made me think...Which is probably why I ended up being so fascinated by the movie. "It's not real from your point of view and right now reality shares your point of view. What scares me about Cane's work is what might happen if reality shared his point of view. Reality is just what we tell each other it is. Sane and insane could easily switch places, if the insane were to become the majority. You would find yourself locked in a padded cell wondering what happened to the world."
I went on IMDB to find out what other people thought of the movie, and on the messageboard, I kept seeing people talking about Lovecraft and how the movie was inspired by his work. Of course, I had to read his stories after that. Never before bed, though. I quickly realized that reading (or watching) anything Lovecraft-related before bed meant I was just asking for nightmares.
Video game developers also seem particularly inspired by Lovecraft's work. Games like Eternal Darkness, Amnesia, Call of Cthulhu (misnamed, but that's not the point) and Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder all borrow from his stories. And there are many other games as well.
It makes me incredibly happy to know that Dashiell Hammett and H.P. Lovecraft are still remembered today. There's a remake of The Thin Man in the works, and as I already stated, video game developers love using Lovecraft's ideas. Not to mention all the current writers who continue to base their work on his mythos (Stephen King's most obvious nod to him probably being Crouch End). I hope they are never forgotten.
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