Hammett

“He created "The Maltese Falcon," "Sam Spade" and "The Thin Man." But he didn't write this mystery thriller...he lived it.”

Dashiell Hammett (Frederic Forrest) is a former Pinkerton detective in San Francisco in 1928, a heavy drinker with tuberculosis who now pays the rent writing pulp stories. Then Jimmy Ryan (Peter Boyle), an old friend from his detective days, turns up unannounced and asks him for help, and Hammett finds himself in a mystery much like one of his own. Wim Wenders, working under Francis Ford Coppola as executive producer, films Chinatown in grainy, rain-dark streets.