Dashiell Hammett – Michael A. Kahn

Flipping Edmund Wilson the Bird: When Does a Work of Literature Qualify as–egads!–a Mystery?

Posted on October 1, 2022 by Michael Kahn

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the leading literary critics of his time, Edmund Wilson. While many of his readers, especially in academia, admire him as the author of such influential works as To the Finland Station (1940) and Patriotic Gore (1962), for this humble scribe, whose books are…

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From Sancho Panza to Saul Goodman: More Thoughts on the Cage-Free Character

Posted on January 12, 2020January 30, 2020 by Michael Kahn

As many of my readers know, I am a big fan of what I have named the Cage-Free Character. Those fictional free-range characters occupy a special place in my library, my own novels, and my heart. What exactly is a Cage-Free Character? He or she typically starts off as a minor character in a novel…

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Bringing Up the Rear: The Literary Mic Drop

Posted on February 23, 2017February 23, 2017 by Michael Kahn

Many years ago, my agent offered me the following advice: “The most important sentence of your novel is the first one. The second most important sentence is the last one.” There certainly have been vivid, memorable first lines, many of which we can quote by heart–from “Call me Ishmael” in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick to “It was a bright…

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From Hard-Boiled Mysteries to Film Noir to the World

Posted on June 16, 2016June 20, 2016 by Michael Kahn

Earlier this month, the St Louis Jewish Film Festival asked me to introduce the screening of Fire Birds, an Israeli murder mystery set in Tel Aviv (with English subtitles). To prepare my introductory remarks, I watched the film. Somewhere toward the middle of the movie, I had my epiphany. “Thank you, Mr. Hammett,” I said….

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The Perfect Ending: Hollywood v. the Novel, Part 3

Posted on January 10, 2013January 10, 2013 by Michael Kahn

And now for the third and final comparison of the closing scene in a major Hollywood movie with the closing scene in the novel on which it was based. Our focus today: The Maltese Falcon. The supposed last line of the movie version invariably makes those lists of Top Ten Greatest Closing Lines: “The stuff…

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