First scripted in 1976, shot in 1980 and reputedly largely re-shot the following year by Francis Coppola, Wim Wenders' first American film still turns out to be a stylistic treat. Frederic Forrest is superb as famed author Dashiell Hammett who gets caught up in a real-life film noir mystery. The Thirties' studio look is beautifully and authentically re-created and the sordid story of blackmail and murder grips to the end. Crime cultists will realise that several elements of the storyline appear in Hammett's later books.


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