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Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe ( ) is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The genre originated in the 1920s, notably in '' Black Mask'' magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Continental Op and Sam Spade first appeared. Marlowe first appeared under that name in '' The Big Sleep'', published in 1939. Chandler's early short stories, published in pulp magazines such as ''Black Mask'' and ''Dime Detective'', featured similar characters with names like "Carmady" and "John Dalmas", starting in 1933. Some of those short stories were later combined and expanded into novels featuring Marlowe, a process Chandler called " cannibalizing", which is more commonly known in publishing as a fix-up. When the original stories were republished years later in the short-story collection '' The Simple Art of Murder'', Chandler did not change the names of the protagonists to Philip Marlowe. His first two stories, "Blackmailers Don't Sho ...
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Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart ( ; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American actor. His performances in classic Hollywood cinema made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, greatest male star of classic American cinema. Bogart began acting in Broadway shows. Debuting in film in ''The Dancing Town'' (1928), he appeared in supporting roles for more than a decade, regularly portraying gangsters. He was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in ''The Petrified Forest'' (1936). Bogart also received positive reviews for his performance as gangster Hugh "Baby Face" Martin in William Wyler's ''Dead End (1937 film), Dead End'' (1937). His breakthrough came in ''High Sierra (film), High Sierra'' (1941), and he catapulted to stardom as the lead in John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941 film), ''The Maltese Falcon'' (1941), considered one of the first great Film noir, ''noir'' films. ...
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Powers Boothe
Powers Allen Boothe (June 1, 1948 – May 14, 2017) was an American actor known for his commanding character actor roles on film and television. He received a Primetime Emmy Award and nominations for two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his portrayal of Jim Jones in '' Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones'' (1980). He also played saloon owner Cy Tolliver on '' Deadwood'' from 2004 to 2006, President Noah Daniels on '' 24'' in 2007, and Lamar Wyatt in ''Nashville'' from 2012 to 2014. He also appeared in the limited series '' Hatfields & McCoys'' (2012). He is also known for his performances as "Curly Bill" Brocius in the western ''Tombstone'' (1993) and Alexander Haig in historical drama ''Nixon'' (1995). Other notable film roles include '' Southern Comfort'' (1981), '' Red Dawn'' (1984), '' Blue Sky'' (1994), '' Sudden Death'' (1995), '' Frailty'' (2001), and ''Sin City'' (2005). He a ...
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Short Story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, Myth, mythic tales, Folklore genre, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables, and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella, novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story remains problematic. A classic definition ...
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Sam Spade
Sam Spade is a fictional character and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel '' The Maltese Falcon''. Spade also appeared in four lesser-known short stories by Hammett. ''The Maltese Falcon'', first published as a serial in the pulp magazine '' Black Mask'', is the only full-length novel by Hammett in which Spade appears. The character, however, is widely cited as a crystallizing figure in the development of hard-boiled private detective fiction— Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, for instance, was strongly influenced by Spade. Spade was a departure from Hammett's nameless and less-than-glamorous detective, The Continental Op. Spade combined several features of previous detectives, most notably his detached demeanor, keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice. Portrayals Spade was a new character created specifically by Hammett for ''The Maltese Falcon''; he had not appeared in any of Hammett's previous stories. Hammett says ...
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The Continental Op
The Continental Op is a fictional character created by Dashiell Hammett. He is a private investigator employed as an operative of the Continental Detective Agency's San Francisco office. The stories are all told in the first person and his name is never given. Profile The Continental Op is a master of deceit in the exercise of his occupation. In his 1927 '' Black Mask'' story "$106,000 Blood Money" the Op is confronted with a dilemma: should he expose a corrupt fellow detective, thereby hurting the reputation of his agency; and should he also allow an informant to collect the $106,000 reward in a big case even though he is morally certain—but cannot prove—that the informant has murdered one of his agency's clients? The Op resolves his two problems neatly by manipulating events so that the corrupt detective and the informant get into an armed confrontation in which both are killed. Decades of witnessing human cruelty, misery, and ruin, as well as being instrumental in sendi ...
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Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( ; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade ('' The Maltese Falcon''), Nick and Nora Charles (''The Thin Man''), The Continental Op ('' Red Harvest'' and '' The Dain Curse'') and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9. Hammett is regarded as one of the very best mystery writers. In his obituary in ''The New York Times'', he was described as "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction." ''Time'' included Hammett's 1929 novel '' Red Harvest'' on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association picked three of his five novels for their list of '' The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time''. Five years later, ''The Maltese Falcon'' placed second on '' The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time'' as selected by ...
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Black Mask (magazine)
''Black Mask'' was a pulp magazine first published in April 1920 by the journalist H. L. Mencken and the drama critic George Jean Nathan. It is most well-known today for launching the Hardboiled, hardboiled crime subgenre of mystery fiction, publishing now-classic works by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, Cornell Woolrich, Paul Cain (pen name), Paul Cain, Carroll John Daly, and others. Early years, 1920–26 The magazine was one of several money-making publishing ventures to support the prestigious literary magazine ''The Smart Set'', which Mencken edited, and which had operated at a loss since at least 1917. Under their editorial hand, the magazine was not exclusively a publisher of crime fiction, offering, according to the magazine, "the best stories available of adventure, the best mystery and detective stories, the best romances, the best love stories, and the best stories of the occult." The magazine's first editor was Florence Osborne (credited as F ...
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Crime Fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. Most crime drama focuses on criminal investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and Mystery fiction, mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction and science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has several subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hardboiled, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. History Proto-science and crime fictions have been composed across history, and in this category can be placed texts as varied as the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia, the Mahabharata from History of India, a ...
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Hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition in the United States (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as Political corruption, corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Nick and Nora Charles, Nick Charles, Mike Hammer (character), Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op. Genre pioneers The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined by James M. Cain and by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s. ...
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Liam Neeson
William John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Liam Neeson, several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards. In 2020, he was placed seventh on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's 50 Greatest Film Actors. Neeson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2000. Neeson made his film debut in 1978 with ''The Pilgrim's Progress#Dramatizations, music, and film, Pilgrim's Progress'' followed by early roles in ''Excalibur (film), Excalibur'' (1981), ''The Bounty (1984 film), The Bounty'' (1984), ''The Mission (1986 film), The Mission'' (1986), ''The Dead Pool'' (1988), and ''Husbands and Wives'' (1992). He rose to prominence portraying Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama film, drama ''Schindler's List'' (1993) for which he earned an Academy Award for Best ...
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Tomáš Hanák
Tomáš Hanák (born March 27, 1957) is a Czech actor, comedian, screenwriter, and TV presenter who has appeared in several films and television shows since 1984. He is also an occasional singer. Biography Hanák was born in Kremnica, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia). He spent two years in Cuba when he was a child, travelling a lot with his parents, where his father worked as a representative of the PZO in the implementation of engineering contracts. From his youth he devoted himself to rowing and repeatedly competed as a representative of Czechoslovakia in non-socialist countries. He became a repeated champion of the Czech Republic. After graduating from high school and a failed attempt to be admitted to the Faculty of the Academy of Performing of Arts in Prague, he began studying economics at Charles University in Prague, specialised in foreign trade. He was unofficially expelled from the school for disseminating anti-socialist texts. Since 1977 he has been active in the popul ...
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Toby Stephens
Toby Stephens (born 21 April 1969) is an English actor who has appeared in films in the United Kingdom, United States, and India. He is known for the roles of Bond villain Gustav Graves in the 2002 James Bond film '' Die Another Day'', for which he was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor; William Gordon in the 2005 '' Mangal Pandey: The Rising'' film; and Edward Fairfax Rochester in the 2006 BBC television adaptation of '' Jane Eyre''. From 2014 to 2017, he starred as Captain Flint in the Starz television series '' Black Sails'', followed by one of the lead roles in the Netflix science fiction series '' Lost in Space'' from 2018 to 2021. He has starred as the Greek God Poseidon in '' Percy Jackson and the Olympians''. Early life and education Stephens, the younger son of actors Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Robert Stephens, was born on 21 April 1969 in London. He was educated at Aldro School and Seaford College in West Sussex. He then trained at ...
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