Who is This ? ? ?

[ilkley remembers]

10 hours ago, Fattyowls said:

it's the stuff that dreams are made of.

Shakespeare...and most appropriate if I may say so.

[neverforget]

Well, the clues came in spades for the previous chap, so perhaps the same will happen for this latest one?

[Fattyowls]

4 hours ago, ilkley remembers said:

Shakespeare...and most appropriate if I may say so.

It's an interesting point you make IR. I've often wondered if Dashiel Hammett (for it is he) thought of the phrase from the Prospero's magical speech in The Tempest which begins "Our revels now are ended" and adapted it for a very different audience. Shakespeare's line - "We are such stuff As dreams are made on" might have confused his 30's American readership. That said the screenplay for the 1941 movie was written by John Huston and it is decades since I read the book so I would need to check that the line was in the original. Was it Hammett or was it Huston? Whodunnit?

The picture of Chandler in my post was from thetyee.ca by the way.

3 hours ago, neverforget said:

the clues came in spades for the previous chap

See what you did there matey, good one.

[Fattyowls]

Update: I've just found an online version of the Maltese Falcon novel and the line does not appear to be in the ending. So it looks like it was Huston whodunnit; who'd have thought it. Every day is a skool day here on WiT?.

Pete.

[ilkley remembers]

25 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

t's an interesting point you make IR. I've often wondered if Dashiel Hammett (for it is he) thought of the phrase from the Prospero's magical speech in The Tempest which begins "Our revels now are ended" and adapted it for a very different audience. Shakespeare's line - "We are such stuff As dreams are made on" might have confused his 30's American readership. That said the screenplay for the 1941 movie was written by John Huston and it is decades since I read the book so I would need to check that the line was in the original. Was it Hammett or was it Huston? Whodunnit?

It is a misquote in the film, Shakespeares words are 'We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep. 

I suppose Prospero is commenting on the ephemeral nature of life using his frequent allusions to sleep and the stage. In the film of course the Maltese Falcon is itself a piece of ephemera and therefore Prospero’s words fit nicely into the plot.

Saw the Tempest last month at the RSC with Alex Kingston in the lead she delivered this final speech with tremendous feeling, although not as well as the Simon Russell Beale whom I saw in 2016.

Shakespeares farewell to the stage…it was his last play…and is all the more moving knowing that.

It would be interesting to know how the line worked its way into the screen play and I presume a search of Google will provide the answer

[Fattyowls]

Sounds brilliant IR. I love the speech that ends "and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book" for the same reasons. I do wonder if posterity has imposed added significance to those lines given what we now know of Shakespeare's career.

[Fattyowls]

For the record Raymond Chandler served with the 16th battalion Canadian Scottish according to the extensive library and it suggests he saw combat on the Western Front and was twice hospitalised with Spanish flu.  If memory serves Hammett joined up but got no further than Tacoma near Seattle where he was treated for illness.

Pete.

[ilkley remembers]

11 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

For the record Raymond Chandler served with the 16th battalion Canadian Scottish according to the extensive library and it suggests he saw combat on the Western Front and was twice hospitalised with Spanish flu.  If memory serves Hammett joined up but got no further than Tacoma near Seattle where he was treated for illness.

Well done @Fattyowls gently easing us away from the wrath of the Admins

[Uncle George]

And talking of film noir, who’s this Hooray Henry?

EDIT: image from ‘Amid the Ruins’ on Amazon website.

Edited 2 April , 2023 by Uncle George

[ilkley remembers]

14 minutes ago, Uncle George said:

And talking of film noir, who’s this Hooray Henry?

I know who apparently coined the phrase but don't think that it is this chap from what I can see so i will assume a 'Harry Lime' position in the shadows for the time being.

[Uncle George]

8 minutes ago, ilkley remembers said:

I know who apparently coined the phrase but don't think that it is this chap from what I can see so i will assume a 'Harry Lime' position in the shadows for the time being.

All right, if you figure there is any percentage in doing so.

[ilkley remembers]

Just now, Uncle George said:

All right, if you figure there is any percentage in doing so

10% is my usual starting figure

[Uncle George]

1 minute ago, ilkley remembers said:

10% is my usual starting figure

Israel Ib has a large snozzle and is as homely as a mud fence, but is well known to be a coming guy in the banking dodge.

[ilkley remembers]

1 minute ago, Uncle George said:

Israel Ib has a large snozzle and is as homely as a mud fence, but is well known to be a coming guy in the banking dodge.

OK Uncle G theres no need to get personal Its got to be Damon Runyon in that case

[Uncle George]

21 hours ago, ilkley remembers said:

OK Uncle G theres no need to get personal Its got to be Damon Runyon in that case

It is, yes. Runyon was a war correspondent during the First war, and also wrote war poetry of sorts:

 

MY FIRST NIGHT IN THE ARMY.

I'm there with two thin blankets,
As thin as a slice of ham,
A German spy was likely the guy
Who made them for Uncle Sam.
How did I sleep? Don't kid me—
My bed-tick's filled with straw,
And lumps and humps and big fat bumps
That pinched till I was raw.

Me and my two thin blankets
As thin as my last thin dime,
As thin, I guess, as a chorus girl's dress,
Well, I had a dandy time.
I'd pull 'em up from the bottom,
Whenever I started to sneeze,
A couple of yanks to cover my shanks,
And then how my "dogs" did freeze.

You could use 'em for porous plasters,
Or maybe to strain the soup,—
My pillows my shoes when I tried to snooze—
And I've chilblains, a cough and croup.

Me and my two thin blankets,
Bundled up under my chin;
Yes, a German spy was likely the guy,
And—MY—but they were thin.

(Poem from here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25085/25085-h/25085-h.htm)
 

Interesting articles here:

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/170415

http://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/2019/12/amid-ruins-damon-runyon-world-war-i.html

Edited 3 April , 2023 by Uncle George

[ilkley remembers]

Good stuff certainly wasn't aware of his war service

[Marilyne]

@Uncle George now that's some poetry a soldier can relate to ... 

... kidding.. 

I find myself again noticing you guys are moving too fast for me... have some pity on the hard working people!!!  

M.

[neverforget]

This twosome had plenty in common, but we're also poles apart when it came to honour and morality. Both names please...

[Marilyne]

German... definitely... are they family of each other??? 

[neverforget]

3 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

German... definitely... are they family of each other??? 

No. One of them was noble, and not only by birth.

[Uncle George]

3 hours ago, neverforget said:

No. One of them was noble, and not only by birth.

“Poles apart” - is that a clue? How about the noble Witold Pilecki?

[neverforget]

5 minutes ago, Uncle George said:

“Poles apart” - is that a clue? How about the noble Witold Pilecki?

No U.G. I wasn't being cryptic on this occasion. I meant they differed greatly; one was a bad egg and the other a good egg. Again, no pun intended) One claimed to be only following orders, while the other refused to obey them on moral grounds, and on grounds of the Geneva Convention. 

One of them shared with one other a unique, but not enviable distinction in terms of how he met his death. 

[Knotty]

 

1 hour ago, neverforget said:

One claimed to be only following orders, while the other refused to obey them on moral grounds, and on grounds of the Geneva Convention. 

Are they both part of a war crime trial?

[neverforget]

1 hour ago, Knotty said:

 

Are they both part of a war crime trial?

Sorry John, for some reason I didn't get a notification about your post, so apologies for the delayed reply. 

Just one of them went on trial. It didn't go well for him. The other was dismissed from his post for insubordination. He then went home and set about taking part in his own mini flight of the populace, which in turn led to the survival of a particular breed of a certain animal. 

[Knotty]

1 hour ago, neverforget said:

I didn't get a notification about your post, so apologies for the delayed reply. 

Time 22:26 and this just popped in, so an hour or so after you posted, there is probably a bit of an issue with the servers, anyway thanks for the additional information, still not much wiser😁