Will we talk about the black bird?
My favourite scene from my favourite film. Great direction, great script, great acting, and all based on a truly great novel by a truly great writer.
Not a wasted word, not an awkward phrase, and all lines delivered perfectly by actors who seem as though they were born to play these characters.
Quite. And I’ll tell you right out that I’m a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk…
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In the Dark 
October 15, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Who is better: Raymond Chandler or Dashiel Hammett?
October 15, 2012 at 10:07 pm
I’ll go for Hammett. I think Chandler is great, but Hammett is greater.
Raymond Chandler was never effusive in his praise for other crime writers, but was an enormous admirer of Hammett. Read, for example, his critical essay The Simple Art of Murder…
http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/chandlerart.html
October 15, 2012 at 10:54 pm
I read a few of each, but it was a while back. At the time I preferred Hammett for plot, for the entertainment of the mystery to solve, but gave the edge to Chandler for style, for the wonderful humorous similes. But I suppose I might see them differently now.