Hammett

Zoetrope. Dir Wim Wenders; Producer Fred Roos, Ronald Colby, Don Guest; Screenplay Ross Thomas, Dennis O'Flaherty; Camera Philip Lathrop, Joseph Biroc; Editor Barry Malkin, Marc Laub, Robert Q. Lovett, Randy Roberts; Music John Barry Art Dir Dean Tavoularis, Eugene Lee

Frederic Forrest
Peter Boyle
Marilu Henner
Roy Kinnear
Sylvia Sidney
Lydia Lei

Wim Wenders' problems with this, his first Hollywood film, are many and well known. Reportedly hired by producer Francis Coppola on the strength of his complicated murder opus, The American Friend [1977], Wenders' Hammett was early on dubbed a rough diamond.

Now, overpolished by too many script rewrites [credited adaptation by Thomas Pope, based on the book by Joe Gores], perhaps emasculated by massive footage scraps and belated re-shoots, project (all shot on interiors) emerges a rather suffocating film taking place in a rickety 'Chinatown'.

But Chinatown it is not. Film is a sort of homage to Dashiel Hammett. Based on a fiction by Joe Gores, it has Hammett far removed from his old private eye days and suffering from TB, eking out a precarious living with short stories penned for pulp detective magazines.

Frederic Forrest looks like Hammett, talks like Humphrey Bogart and is acceptable. His old boss from the Pinkerton Private Eye Co is played with force by Peter Boyle.

A Chinese prostitute has disappeared and must be found for she might be dangerous to top monied interests. After several chases, killings and muggings, it emerges that the Chinese girl has some incriminating porn pictures of all the men who really run the town.

(Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1982. Running time: 94 MIN.

Variety is striving to present the most thorough review database. To report inaccuracies in review credits, please click here. We do not currently list below-the-line credits, although we hope to include them in the future. Please note we may not respond to every suggestion. Your assistance is appreciated.