Showtime for the Continental Op

The first Dashiell Hammett stories I read were in a paperback collection titled simply The Continental Op, edited by Steven Marcus, in the mid-1970s. And what terrific stories they were.

The unnamed operative for the Continental Detective Agency was one of the earliest hardboiled detectives in fiction. Hammett’s first Continental Op story, “Arson Plus,” appeared under the pen name Peter Collinson in Black Mask magazine dated Oct. 1, 1923. That was just four months after the first hardboiled Race Williams short story, “Knights of the Open Palm,” by Carroll John Daly in the same pulp magazine, dated June 1, 1923.

(Curiously, the Oct. 15, 1923, number of Black Mask included two Continental Op stories: “Crooked Souls,” credited to Hammett; and “Slippery Fingers,” under the Collinson pen name.)

Hammett wrapped up the Continental Op series in the November 1930 number of Black Mask with the story “Death and Company.” The series totaled 36 stories, with four of the stories republished as the novel Red Harvest, and another four as The Dain Curse. All but two of the Op tales ran in Black Mask. “Who Killed Bob Teal?” ran in True Detective Stories (November 1924) and “This King Business” appeared in Mystery Stories (January 1928).

In a story called “Fly Paper,” the Op investigates the runaway, black-sheep daughter of a wealthy New York family. The story was third-to-last in the series, appearing in the August 1929 number of Black Mask.

In 1995, “Fly Paper” became an episode in a TV anthology program called Fallen Angels.

I wasn’t familiar with the half-hour program. But it ran on the premium cable channel Showtime for two series: six episodes in 1993, and nine in 1995. The program dramatized mystery stories by authors such as Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Cornell Woolrich, David Goodis, Bruno Fischer, and Walter Mosley.

The “Fly Paper” episode was adapted by novelist Donald E. Westlake, and starred Christopher Lloyd as the Op. It’s an odd casting as the Op is described just the opposite of the tall, lanky Lloyd, as well as 15 to 20 years younger. But Lloyd did a surprisingly good job capturing the no-nonsense character. (I didn’t recognize Darren McGavin as the Op’s boss, the Old Man, despite knowing he was in the show.)

The episode, below, runs about 30 minutes, so kick back and enjoy.

A tip of the fedora to Evan Lewis for posting the video on his blog, Davy Crockett’s Almanack. You’ll also find a scan of the August 1928 Black Mask cover with “Fly Paper.”