james.doherty@gsa.gov
30 Aug 99 11:07:00 -0400
Re NHT's recent query"
"2) I recently Red Harvest, somewhere in there, the
protagonist uses the words 'burning Fatimas' to refer to
smoking. Does this refer to a specific brand of cigarette now
defunct, or is it just slang?"
Fatima cigarettes were a popular brand through the '50s and
'60. When the hard-boiled cop show, *Dragnet*, first started
on radio, it was sponsored by
"Fatima Cigarettes, best of all long cigarettes." It always
seemed apprpriate to me that the Op, like (presumably) Joe
Friday, smoked Fatimas.
"What in the wide, wide world of sports is the name of the
main character in Red Harvest and The Dain Curse?"
Hammett just referred to him as "my sleuth" or "this sleuth
of mine." Editors came to refer to him as the "Continental
Op" because he was an operative of the Continental Detective
Agency (a fictional analog for the Pinkerton Detective
Agency).
In a TV movie adaptation of *The Dain Curse*, the character
was given the name "Hamilton Nash," which is "Dashiell
Hammett" spelled sideways. Sort of. James Coburn, an actor
who bore a great physical resemblance to Hammett, was cast as
the Op/Nash. Ironically, in the books, the Op is described as
short and heavy-set, rather than tall and thin like Hammett,
but the producers felt (correctly in my opinon) that the Op
was basically Hammett's fictional alter ego, and decided to
cast accordingly. - Jim Doherty
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