by Dashiell Hammett
Goodwood Theatre 166a Goodwood Road, Goodwood
April 26, 27, May 2, 3, 4 @ 7.30Matinees Sunday 28 @ 4.00; May 4 @ 2.00Early Tuesday April 30, Wednesday May 1 @ 6.30
Hard-boiled San Francisco Private Eye, Sam Spade, is hired by the alluring Miss Wonderly to track down her sister, who has eloped with a gangster called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderly quickly turns out to be as slippery and treacherous as she is beautiful.
Throw into the mix a perfumed Greek fortune-hunter, a teenage hoodlum, a sinister fat man, plus a fabulous jewel-encrusted statue worth murdering for, and the stage is set for one of the greatest crime thrillers of all time.
These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering 1928 gem of detective fiction, the first of its kind, and one that has haunted generations of readers.
The story was filmed twice, in the 1930s, before John Huston decided to make it his first film. And thank goodness he did, because his 1941 version – which starred Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet – became a cinema classic, ushering in, as it did, the film noir style of seedy detective films.
Following its tradition of its award-winning Strangers on a Train, and by The Hound of the Baskervilles, Independent Theatre is thrilled to be bringing another brilliant classic of crime and mystery to the stage.