On this day in movie history - The Maltese Falcon (1941 movie & novel):

The Maltese Falcon

directed and written by John Huston,

based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett,

was released in the United States on October 18, 1941.
Music by Adolph Deutsch.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook Jr., James Burke, Murray Alper, John Hamilton, Walter Huston.

Recommended reading:

The Maltese Falcon

By Dashiell Hammett.

Introduction by Richard Russo.

First published 1930.

Published by Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679722645

ISBN-13: 978-0679722649

Description:

“Hammett … wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.” – Raymond Chandler.

Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance – a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the trail are a perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, an oversized adventurer named Gutman, and Spade’s new client Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime.

These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted generations of readers.

“Hammett’s prose [is] clean and entirely unique. His characters [are] as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction.” – The New York Times.

On this day in movie history - Dark Passage (1947 movie & novel):

Dark Passage

directed and written by Delmer Daves,

based on the novel by David Goodis,

was released in the United States on September 27, 1947.
Music by Franz Waxman.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead, Tom D'Andrea, Clifton Young, Douglas Kennedy, Rory Mallinson, Houseley Stevenson, John Arledge, Frank Wilcox.

Recommended reading:

Dark Passage

By David Goodis.

First published 1946.

ISBN 13: 9781598534467

ISBN 10: 1598534467

ASIN: B00TNBOFUI

Description:

The story of a man railroaded for his wife’s murder and forced to assume a different identity after escaping from prison becomes in Goodis’s hands a lyrical evocation of urban fear and loneliness. A fugitive from justice, in the depths of despair, he finds refuge with a beautiful woman as he struggles to unravel a nightmarish plot.

First published as a magazine serial, Dark Passage was filmed in 1947 by Delmer Daves. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, it is regarded as a classic of noir filmmaking.

For the first time, the best work of a distinctive master of American noir is available in authoritative e-book editions from The Library of America. David Goodis experienced a brief celebrity when his novel Dark Passage (1946) became the basis for a popular movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Other David Goodis novels available as Library of America E-Book Classics include: Nightfall, The Burglar, The Moon in the Gutter, and Street of No Return.

On this day in movie history - Dead End (1937):

Dead End

directed by William Wyler,

written by Lillian Hellman,

based on the play by Sidney Kingsley,

was released in the United States on August 27, 1937.
Music by Alfred Newman.

Cast:

Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, Allen Jenkins, Marjorie Main, Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, Bernard Punsly, Charles Peck, Minor Watson, James Burke, Ward Bond, Elisabeth Risdon, Esther Dale, George Humbert, Marcelle Corday.

On this day in movie history - The Big Sleep (1946 movie & novel):

The Big Sleep

directed by Howard Hawks,

written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman,

based on the novel by Raymond Chandler,

was released in the United States on August 23, 1946.
Music by Max Steiner.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Sonia Darrin, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Peggy Knudsen, Charles Waldron, Charles D. Brown, Bob Steele, Elisha Cook, Jr., Louis Jean Heydt, Trevor Bardette, Tommy Rafferty, Ben Welden, Tom Fadden, Theodore von Eltz.

Recommended reading:

The Big Sleep

By Raymond Chandler.

Published by Penguin.

First published 1939.

ISBN-10: 0241970776

ISBN-13: 978-0241970775

Description:

The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective, Philip Marlowe.

A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

In 1999, the book was voted 96th of Le Monde's "100 Books of the Century".

On this day in movie history - They Drive by Night (1940):

They Drive by Night

directed by Raoul Walsh,

written by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay,

based on the novel Long Haul by A. I. Bezzerides,

was released in the United States on July 26, 1940.

Music by Adolph Deutsch.

Cast:

George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Alan Hale, Roscoe Karns, John Litel, George Tobias, Henry O'Neill, Charles Halton, Paul Hurst, John Ridgely, George Lloyd, Joyce Compton, Charles Wilson, Pedro Regas, Norman Willis, Joe Devlin, William Haade, Vera Lewis, John Hamilton, Eddie Acuff, Howard Hickman, Lillian Yarbo.