Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Overlooked Films: The Continental Op in Dashiell Hammett's FLY PAPER (1995)



Christopher Lloyd stars as the Op, with Darren McGavin as the Old Man, and a screenplay by Donald Westlake. From the Showtime series Fallen Angels.


More Overlooked Stuff at Sweet Freedom.

7 comments:

Joel Lyczak said...

Now this is the kind of program I would like to see PBS present. Don't get me wrong, I like MYSTERY, but they favor the British authors. A series based on the Hammett short stories would be a welcome change.

Todd Mason said...

They took a flier on some Tony Hillerman adaptations as AMERICAN MYSTERY! presentations, but the corporate sponsors wouldn't get too excited about the kind of money needed...if Fox productions hadn't had Fox Broadcasting back out on the dramatic series AMERICAN FAMILY at the last minute, that one wouldn't've appeared on PBS...and did so well at selling dvd sets of the first season that PBS and Fox went ahead with a second season.

Now that PBS is getting a little more interested in trying to find the next DOWNTON, and are casting about with Canadian as well as UK coproductions, we might see something a bit closer to home occur. Netflix coproductions, or Amazon, might be in the offing eventually.

Dan_Luft said...

Never heard of this but, oddly enough, this was about the time I thought Danny DeVito would've made a good Op

Evan Lewis said...

DeVito looked the part, and would have been entertaining.

Tom Powers said...

Great fun to watch, thanks!

Matthew Clark said...

This is nicely done. But, why the switch to Los Angeles? Maybe to justify all that bright golden sunlight coming through the windows?

Gary Phillips said...

Nicely done. You can't find it anywhere, but the full version of the Dain Curse mini-series is pretty good with James Coburn playing more as Hammett -- tall, mustachioed, white hair -- than the chubby, balding Op. Fallen Angels also did one with Danny Glover as Marlowe in Red Wind.