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109-441: Secret Agent X-9 is a comic strip created by writer Dashiell Hammett ( The Maltese Falcon ) and artist Alex Raymond ( Flash Gordon ). Syndicated by King Features , it ran from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996. X-9 was a nameless agent who worked for a nameless agency. X-9 used the name "Dexter" in the first story ("It's not my name, but it'll do") and kept using it or being called by it in later stories, but acquired

218-723: A "very critical Marxist" who was "often contemptuous of the Soviet Union " and "bitingly sharp about the American Communist Party ", to which he was nevertheless loyal. At the beginning of 1942, he wrote the screenplay of Watch on the Rhine , based on Hellman's successful play, which received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) . But that year the Oscar went to Casablanca . In early 1942, following

327-699: A San Francisco jewelers, are given in: Starting in December 1925 and ending August 1926, there appeared monthly, in Western Advertising “Books Reviews by S. H.” Hammett is using not using D. but his other initial S. for Samuel. After their initial publication in pulp magazines, most of Hammett's short stories were first collected in ten digest-sized paperbacks by Mercury Publications under an imprint, either Bestsellers Mystery , A Jonathan Press Mystery or Mercury Mystery . The stories were edited by Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay) and were abridged versions of

436-455: A daily show, running four days a week. This series strayed further from Raymond's strip, involving Flash, Dale and Zarkov in an adventure in Atlantis . The series aired 60 episodes, ending on February 6, 1936. Twenty-six years after he had played Flash Gordon in the last of the three Universal film serials (1940), Buster Crabbe again played Flash for two newly recorded audio-dramas released as

545-594: A daily strip was also introduced. This strip was drawn by Austin Briggs and ran from 1941 to 1944. After Raymond left Flash Gordon in 1944 to join the US Marines, the daily strip was cancelled and Briggs took over the Sunday strip. Although Raymond wanted to return to drawing Flash Gordon after the war's end, King Features did not want to remove Briggs from his position. To conciliate Raymond, King Features allowed him to create

654-489: A few US newspapers. On October 20, 2023, it was announced that King Features Syndicate would relaunch Flash Gordon on October 22 under cartoonist Dan Schkade and would be released daily, the Sunday strip being an overview of the week's strips. Unofficial Flash Gordon is regarded as one of the best illustrated and most influential of American adventure comic strips. Historian of science fiction art Jane Frank asserted that because of his work on Flash Gordon , "Raymond

763-481: A film of the story. Federico Fellini optioned the Flash Gordon rights from Dino De Laurentiis , but never made the film. George Lucas also attempted to make a Flash Gordon film in the 1970s, but was unable to acquire the rights from De Laurentiis, so he decided to create Star Wars instead. De Laurentiis then hired Nicolas Roeg to make a Flash Gordon film, but was unhappy with Roeg's ideas, and Roeg left

872-486: A home in San Francisco , where Hammett would visit on weekends. The marriage soon fell apart; however, he continued to support his wife and daughters with the income he made from his writing. Hammett was first published in 1922 in the magazine The Smart Set . Known for the authenticity and realism of his writing, he drew on his experiences as a Pinkerton operative. Hammett wrote most of his detective fiction while he

981-413: A letter of November 25, 1937, to his daughter Mary, Hammett referred to himself and others as "we reds". He confirmed, "in a democracy all men are supposed to have an equal say in their government", but added that "their equality need not go beyond that." He also found, "under socialism there is not necessarily... any leveling of incomes." Hellman wrote that Hammett was "most certainly" a Marxist , though

1090-970: A member (and in 1941 president) of the League of American Writers, he served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . Especially in Red Harvest , literary scholars have seen a Marxist critique of the social system. One Hammett biographer, Richard Layman, calls such interpretations "imaginative", but he nonetheless objects to them, since, among other reasons, no "masses of politically dispossessed people" are in this novel. Herbert Ruhm found that contemporary left-wing media already viewed Hammett's writing with skepticism, "perhaps because his work suggests no solution: no mass-action... no individual salvation... no Emersonian reconciliation and transcendence ". In

1199-425: A nameless private investigator, The Continental Op , appeared in leading crime-fiction pulp magazine Black Mask . Both Hammett and the magazine struggled in the period when Hammett became established. Because of a disagreement with editor Philip C. Cody about money owed from previous stories, Hammett briefly stopped writing for Black Mask in 1926. He then took a full-time job as an advertisement copywriter for

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1308-616: A new strip, Rip Kirby . After Briggs left the Sunday strip in 1948, he was succeeded by former comic book artist Mac Raboy , who drew the strip until his death in 1967. In 1951, King Features created a new daily Flash Gordon strip. This strip was drawn by Dan Barry . Barry was assisted during his tenure by Harvey Kurtzman and Harry Harrison , who both wrote scripts for the strip. Barry also had several artists who aided him with Flash Gordon's illustrations, including Frank Frazetta , Al Williamson , Bob Fujitani , Jack Davis , Sy Barry , Fred Kida and Emil Gershwin. When Barry left

1417-551: A periodic nemesis of Flash in the late 1970s stories. King Features sold the Flash Gordon strip to newspapers across the world, and by the late 1930s, the strip was published in 130 newspapers, translated into eight foreign languages, and was read by 50 million people. In the 1930s and 1940s, several newspapers in Britain carried Flash Gordon , including the Scottish Sunday Mail . In France, his adventures were published in

1526-556: A personal life, introducing Belinda "Linda" Reed as Corrigan's gal Friday and early romantic interest in 1940. Wilda Dorre (later Dorray), a beautiful, blonde mystery novelist, debuted in late 1944 as a romantic rival. Corrigan finally chooses Wilda in 1947. Graff provides Linda a happy ending as well, as she marries Phil's younger brother, Bing, who was introduced in 1945 and is Phil's partner through 1947. Both female characters inspired popular songs: "Linda" written by Jack Lawrence and "Wilda" written by Graff. Wilda and Phil marry in 1950, and

1635-474: A remarkable achievement, the last word in atrocity, cynicism and horror. Dashiell Hammett's dialogues, in which every character is trying to deceive all the others and in which the truth slowly becomes visible through a fog of deception, can be compared only with the best in Hemingway." Hammett devoted much of his life to left-wing activism . He was a strong antifascist throughout the 1930s, and in 1937 joined

1744-462: A rocket ship to fly into space in an attempt to stop the disaster. Half mad, he kidnaps Flash and Dale. Landing on the planet, and halting the collision, they come into conflict with Ming the Merciless , Mongo's evil ruler. For many years, the three companions have adventures on Mongo, traveling to the forest kingdom of Arboria, ruled by Prince Barin ; the ice kingdom of Frigia, ruled by Queen Fria;

1853-554: A spirited female agent of a rival clandestine spy agency. In 2000–2001, X-9 made a guest appearance in the Flash Gordon Sunday strip . One page was drawn by Evans, marking X-9's last appearance in newspaper comics. The first comic-book story with X-9 produced in the U.S. was a serialized backup feature in the Flash Gordon book, in a quintet of five-page installments in issues #4–8 (1967). The first part ("The Key to Power")

1962-697: A synthetic aviation fuel, code-named "722". Keye Luke co-stars as Chinese agent Ah Fong, Jan Wiley as Australian agent Lynn Moore, Victoria Horne as Japanese master spy Nabura and Benson Fong as Japanese scientist Dr. Hakahima. The three-country alliance is referred to as the United Nations, predating the term's use by the real-life organization . Secret Agent X-9 was adapted as a radio drama broadcast on BBC Radio 5 in January 1994, starring Stuart Milligan as X-9 and Connie Booth as Grace Powers. There were four episodes, adapted by Mark Brisenden and directed by Chris Wallis. In 1976, Nostalgia Press published

2071-400: A trade paperback reprinting many of the early Hammett/Raymond strips, with an introduction by Bill Blackbeard . In 1983, International Polygonics published a trade paperback edition ( ISBN   0-930330-05-6 ) of the original Dashiell Hammett/Alex Raymond strips that included an additional story scripted by Leslie Charteris and a foreword by William F. Nolan , author of Hammett: A Life on

2180-527: A volume with the Hammett/Raymond strips. Dashiell Hammett Hammett is regarded as one of the very best mystery writers. In his obituary in The New York Times , he was described as "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction." Time included Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. In 1990,

2289-523: A week-by-week adaptation of the Sunday strip for most of its run. Flash Gordon was played by Gale Gordon , later famous for his television roles in Our Miss Brooks , Dennis the Menace , The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy (the latter two with Lucille Ball ). The cast also included Maurice Franklin as Dr. Zarkov and Bruno Wick as Ming the Merciless. The radio series broke with the strip continuity in

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2398-513: Is based loosely on the first few years of the comic strip, revising Flash's backstory by making him the quarterback of the New York Jets instead of a polo player. Raymond's drawings feature heavily in the opening credits, as does the signature theme-song " Flash " by rock band Queen , who composed and performed the entire musical score. Riding the coat-tails of Star Wars , Superman , and Star Trek: The Motion Picture , Flash Gordon

2507-544: Is dedicated to Hellman. Why he moved away from fiction is not certain; Hellman speculated in a posthumous collection of Hammett's novels, "I think, but I only think, I know a few of the reasons: he wanted to do new kind of work; he was sick for many of those years and getting sicker." In the 1940s, Hellman and he lived at her home, Hardscrabble Farm, in Pleasantville, New York . The French novelist André Gide thought highly of Hammett, stating: "I regard his Red Harvest as

2616-550: Is dedicated to his wife Josephine. For much of 1929 and 1930, he was romantically involved with Nell Martin , a writer of short stories and several novels. He dedicated The Glass Key to her, and in turn she dedicated her novel Lovers Should Marry to him. In 1931, Hammett embarked on a 30-year romantic relationship with the playwright Lillian Hellman . Though he sporadically continued to work on material, he wrote his final novel in 1934, more than 25 years before his death. The Thin Man

2725-558: Is one of the most famous science fiction artists of all time, although he never contributed an illustration to any science fiction magazine or book". Comic book artist Jerry Robinson has said "What made Flash Gordon a classic strip was Raymond's artistry and the rich imagination he brought to his conceptions of the future" and described the final years of Raymond's tenure on the strip as being characterized by "sleek, brilliantly polished brush work." The science fiction historian John Clute has stated that "The comics version of Flash Gordon

2834-589: Is presented uncut with the original English voice track, with Japanese subtitles added for its intended audience. At the movie's ending is a trailer for the De Laurentiis live-action movie, as well as trailers for other titles from the VAP Video library at the time. The covers for both versions feature comic-strip panels, using stills taken from the movie. The movie was also released theatrically in some European Countries, as evidenced by this portuguese lobby card. In

2943-541: Is preserved in a crystal, which Rick is able to recover and give to his father. Dale is reborn on Earth as Dynak-X, the strategic super-computer based in the Defenders' Headquarters. In 1996, Hearst Entertainment premiered an animated Flash Gordon television series. In this version, Alex "Flash" Gordon and Dale Arden are hoverboarding teenagers, who become trapped on Mongo after stopping Ming's attempt to invade Earth. A live-action series, comprising 22 one-hour episodes,

3052-436: Is said to have lacked heart, yet the story he thought most of himself [ The Glass Key ] is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before." Currently, 82 complete and standalone short stories are known to be written by Dashiell Hammett. They are listed below in

3161-420: Is the rare depiction of a Native American in comic strips of this period in that he is portrayed as intelligent, competent, witty and attractive enough for a female painter to seek him out as a male model. He is also unique for having an interracial romance with that painter. Graff was followed by artist Bob Lubbers , who used the pseudonym "Bob Lewis" and drew the strip from 1960 through 1966. From 1967 to 1979,

3270-469: Is to recover the crown jewels of Belgravia and to capture master thief Blackstone. Accompanying him is Shara Graustark (Jean Rogers), who has her own reasons and agenda. The second serial, Secret Agent X-9 , stars a young Lloyd Bridges as Phil Corrigan/X-9. In the 13 chapters, American, Australian and Chinese agents join forces against the Nazis and Japanese to uncover and possess the formula that will help create

3379-563: The Agent X9 magazine: Unlike the previous stories, the Barr & Manley stories did not use a daily strip format. An Australian comic book, Phil Corrigan: Secret Agent X9 , was published by Atlas Publications between 1948 and 1956. It featured reprints of the newspaper strips. Two film serials were produced featuring Agent X-9, one in 1937 and one in 1945 . In the first, Scott Kolk plays Agent Dexter a.k.a. Agent X-9. One of his top assignments

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3488-546: The Communist Party . On May 1, 1935, Hammett joined the League of American Writers (1935–1943), whose members included Lillian Hellman, Alexander Trachtenberg of International Publishers , Frank Folsom, Louis Untermeyer , I. F. Stone , Myra Page , Millen Brand , Clifford Odets , and Arthur Miller . (Members were largely either Communist Party members or fellow travelers .) He suspended his anti-fascist activities when, as

3597-537: The Crime Writers' Association picked three of his five novels for their list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time . Five years later, The Maltese Falcon placed second on The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time as selected by the Mystery Writers of America ; Red Harvest , The Glass Key and The Thin Man were also on the list. His novels and stories also had a significant influence on films, including

3706-581: The Flash Gordon strip, while in Fascist Italy it was restricted to two newspapers. In 1938, the Spanish magazine Aventurero , the only publication in the country to carry Flash Gordon , ceased publication because of the Spanish Civil War . The outbreak of World War II resulted in Flash Gordon being discontinued in many countries. In Belgium , artist Edgar Pierre Jacobs was therefore asked to bring

3815-708: The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin . This archive includes manuscripts and personal correspondence, along with a small group of miscellaneous notes. The Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of South Carolina holds the Dashiell Hammett family papers. Hammett's relationship with Lillian Hellman was portrayed in the 1977 film Julia . Jason Robards won an Oscar for his depiction of Hammett, and Jane Fonda

3924-544: The House Un-American Activities Committee about his own activities, but refused to cooperate with the committee. No official action was taken, but his stand caused him to be blacklisted , along with others who were blacklisted as a result of McCarthyism . Hammett became an alcoholic before working in advertising, and alcoholism continued to trouble him until 1948, when he quit under doctor's orders. However, years of heavy drinking and smoking worsened

4033-615: The attack on Pearl Harbor , Hammett again enlisted in the United States Army . Because he was 48 years old, had tuberculosis, and was a Communist, Hammett later stated he had "a hell of a time" being inducted into the Army. However, biographer Diane Johnson suggests that confusion over Hammett's forenames was the reason he was able to re-enlist. He served as an enlisted man in the Aleutian Islands and initially worked on cryptanalysis on

4142-510: The "Hawkmen" characters in Raymond's Flash Gordon comic strip. In Avengers: Infinity War , Iron Man mockingly refers to Star-Lord as Flash Gordon due to their similar appearance and both being space heroes. Scientist and track-and-field olympian Meredith C. Gourdine 's nickname, "Flash" Gourdine, was based on Flash Gordon. Most of the Flash Gordon film and television adaptations retell

4251-399: The 1938 serial into a feature-length film entitled Flash Gordon: The Deadly Ray from Mars; and the 1940 serial into a feature-length film entitled The Purple Death from Outer Space . The first Flash Gordon serial remains copyrighted, but the compilation made of the second serial, and the third serial itself are in the public domain. In the 1970s, several noted directors attempted to make

4360-500: The 1986 cartoon Defenders of the Earth , Flash teamed up with fellow King Features heroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician in 65 episodes. This series took extreme liberties with all the characters, revealing that Flash and Dale Arden had conceived a son, Rick Gordon, who is in his mid-teens when the series begins. Dale has her mind torn from her body by Ming in the first episode and

4469-691: The Albert S. Samuels Co., a San Francisco jeweller. He was wooed back to writing for the Black Mask by Joseph Thompson Shaw, who became the new editor in the summer of 1926. Hammett dedicated his first novel, Red Harvest , to Shaw and his second novel, The Dain Curse , to Samuels. Both these novels and his third, The Maltese Falcon , and fourth, The Glass Key , were first serialized in Black Mask before being revised and edited for publication by Alfred A. Knopf . The Maltese Falcon , considered to be his best work,

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4578-544: The Army as a patient at Cushman Hospital in Tacoma, Washington , where he met a nurse, Josephine Dolan, whom he married on July 7, 1921, in San Francisco. Hammett and Dolan had two daughters, Mary Jane (born 1921) and Josephine (born 1926). Shortly after the birth of their second child, health services nurses informed Dolan that, owing to Hammett's tuberculosis, she and the children should not live with him full time. Dolan rented

4687-487: The Continental Op (2017). Along with the novels, these later collections have been reprinted in paperback versions under many imprints: Vintage Crime , Black Lizard , Everyman's library . Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond . First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with,

4796-578: The Cruel, Ming's callous son. Prince Polon, who had the power to shrink or enlarge living creatures, the unscrupulous Queen Rubia, and Pyron the Comet Master were among the antagonists introduced during Mac Raboy's run. The Skorpi, a race of alien shape shifters who desired to conquer the galaxy, were recurring villains in both the Mac Raboy and Dan Barry stories. The Skorpi space-fighter ace Baron Dak-Tula became

4905-626: The Edge . In 1990, Kitchen Sink Press did a single volume reprint ( ISBN   0-87816-077-9 ) of the Hammett/Raymond work on the strip. Comics Revue magazine has reprinted many of the George Evans and Goodwin/Williamson strips. From 2010 to 2013, IDW 's imprint Library of American Comics published the Archie Goodwin/Al Williamson strips complete in five volumes. A sixth volume collected strips by George Evans. In 2015, IDW published

5014-481: The Gap, Dash & Lily in 2020. The book series was made into a Netflix television series. Raymond Chandler , often considered Hammett's successor, summarized his accomplishments in his essay " The Simple Art of Murder ": "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not with hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare, and tropical fish... He

5123-589: The Pinkertons he was sent to Butte, Montana , during the union strikes, though some researchers doubt this really happened. The agency's role in strike-breaking eventually left him disillusioned. Hammett enlisted in 1918 and served in the United States Army Ambulance Service . He was afflicted during that time with the Spanish flu and later contracted tuberculosis . He spent most of his time in

5232-581: The Skorpi War takes Flash to other star systems, using starships that are faster than light . In addition to Ming and his allies, Flash and his friends also fought several other villains, including Azura, the Witch Queen; Brukka, chieftain of the giants of Frigia; the fascistic Red Sword organisation on Earth; and Brazor, the tyrannical usurper of Tropica. After Raymond's tenure, later writers created new enemies for Flash to combat. Austin Briggs created Kang

5341-615: The Southern District of New York issued subpoenas to the trustees of the CRC bail fund in an attempt to learn the whereabouts of the fugitives. Hammett testified on July 9, 1951, in front of United States District Court Judge Sylvester Ryan, facing questioning by Irving Saypol , the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York , described by Time as "the nation's number-one legal hunter of top Communists". During

5450-419: The Sunday strip were syndicated by King Features Syndicate from 2003 until 2023, when Flash Gordon was relaunched with a new daily and Sunday strip. The comic strip follows the adventures of Flash Gordon, a handsome polo player and Yale University graduate, and his companions Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov . The story begins with Earth threatened by a collision with the planet Mongo . Dr. Zarkov invents

5559-609: The United States, although some sources indicate that off-air bootlegs are prevalent. The only known commercial releases were by VAP Video in Japan (catalog #67019-128), in 1983, in both laserdisc and NTSC VHS videotape formats; and in Bulgaria, where it was released on VHS "Van Chris" and "Drakar". The movie also aired numerous times on "Diema" Channel in the late 1990s. In the Japanese release, it

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5668-453: The WB's Smallville , played the title character of Steven "Flash" Gordon. Gina Holden played Dale Arden , Jody Racicot played Dr. Hans Zarkov , and John Ralston portrayed the arch-villain, Ming. Starting April 22, 1935, the strip was adapted into The Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon , a 26-episode weekly radio serial. The series followed the strip very closely, amounting to

5777-460: The already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. The Buck Rogers comic strip had been commercially very successful, spawning novelizations and children's toys, and King Features Syndicate decided to create its own science fiction comic strip to compete with it. At first, King Features tried to purchase the rights to the John Carter of Mars stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs . However,

5886-569: The amount of "$ 260,000 in negotiable government bonds" was posted "to free eleven men appealing against their convictions under the Smith Act for criminal conspiracy to teach and advocate the overthrow of the United States government by force and violence." On July 2, 1951, their appeals exhausted, four of the convicted men fled rather than surrender themselves to federal agents and begin serving their sentences. The United States District Court for

5995-402: The characters Flash Gordon, girlfriend Dale Arden, sidekick Dr. Hans Zarkov, antagonist Ming the Merciless, and Princess Aura. In 2010, Breck Eisner expressed interest to direct a 3D film version of Flash Gordon. Since April 2014, 20th Century Fox was developing the Flash Gordon reboot with J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay writing the film's script. Matthew Vaughn was in talks to direct

6104-595: The comedy films Ted (2012) and Ted 2 (2015) causing a resurgence in interest in the film. In 1967, a low-budget Turkish adaptation of the comic was made, called Flash Gordon's Battle in Space ( Baytekin – Fezada Çarpisanlar in Turkish). Hasan Demirtag played Flash Gordan. Robb Pratt, director of the popular fan film Superman Classic , made Flash Gordon Classic , released in May 2015. The traditionally animated short features

6213-499: The comic strip and 1930s serials. Brian Blessed's performance as the Hawkman leader Prince Vultan lodged the veteran stage and screen actor into the collective consciousness for the utterance of a single line – "GORDON'S ALIVE?!" – which, more than 30 years later, remained the most repeated, reused, and recycled quotation from both the film and Blessed's career. The film's cult status led it to feature heavily in

6322-402: The comic strip's initial storyline. Raymond's first samples were dismissed for not containing enough action sequences. Raymond reworked the story and sent it back to the syndicate, which accepted it. Raymond was partnered with ghostwriter Don Moore, an experienced editor and writer. Raymond's first Flash Gordon story appeared in January 1934, alongside Jungle Jim . The Flash Gordon strip

6431-694: The current Flash Gordon story to a satisfactory conclusion, which he did. After the war's end, the strip enjoyed a resurgence in international popularity. Flash Gordon reappeared in Italy, Spain and West Germany, and it was also syndicated to new markets like Portugal and the Irish Republic . From the 1950s onward, countries like Spain, Italy and Denmark also reprinted Flash Gordon newspaper strips in comic book or paperback novel form. In India, Flash Gordon comics were published by Indrajal Comics . The popularity of Raymond's Flash Gordon Sunday strip meant

6540-512: The early adventures on the planet Mongo. Flash Gordon was featured in three serial films starring Buster Crabbe : Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). The 1936 Flash Gordon serial was condensed into a feature-length film titled Flash Gordon or Rocket Ship or Space Soldiers or Flash Gordon: Spaceship to the Unknown ;

6649-505: The feature were published in parallel in the magazine, but received different titles, due to the art styles and appearances of the main character differing wildly. Raymond's and Lubbers' versions had the title Agent X9 , Graff's version had the title Kelly vid FBI ( Kelly at FBI ), and Williamson's and Evans' versions had the title Agent Corrigan , as the strip already had been renamed in English. The Agent X9 comic book has been published in

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6758-463: The film. Mark Protosevich was hired to rewrite the film's script. Julius Avery was later signed to write and direct film, with Vaughn as producer alongside John Davis . An animated film was under development at Disney/Fox with Taika Waititi writing and directing. In August 2019, the animated film was believed to be cancelled, but in July 2021, producers John Davis and John Fox revealed that Waititi

6867-448: The following countries: During the 1980s, the Agent X9 editors requested more Secret Agent X-9 material from King Features since the newspaper stories were quickly published. King Features then began to supply the magazine with exclusive stories that have never been published elsewhere. Although these stories were made directly for comic magazines, they were produced in the regular daily strip format. The following produced stories for

6976-520: The genres of private eye/ detective fiction , mystery thrillers, and film noir . Hammett was born near Great Mills on the "Hopewell and Aim" farm in Saint Mary's County, Maryland , to Richard Thomas Hammett and his wife Anne Bond Dashiell. His mother belonged to an old Maryland family, whose name in French was De Chiel. He had an elder sister, Aronia, and a younger brother, Richard Jr. Known as Sam, Hammett

7085-523: The hearing, Hammett refused to provide the information the government wanted, specifically the list of contributors to the bail fund, "people who might be sympathetic enough to harbor the fugitives." Instead, on every question regarding the CRC or the bail fund, Hammett declined to answer, citing the Fifth Amendment , refusing to even identify his signature or initials on CRC documents the government had subpoenaed. As soon as his testimony concluded, Hammett

7194-529: The hearings. He found himself impoverished due to a combination of the cancellation of radio programs The Adventures of Sam Spade and The Adventures of the Thin Man , and a lien on his income by the Internal Revenue Service for back taxes owed since 1943. Furthermore, his books were no longer in print. During the 1950s Hammett was investigated by Congress . He testified on March 26, 1953, before

7303-419: The island of Umnak . For fear of his radical tendencies, he was transferred to the Headquarters Company where he edited an Army newspaper entitled The Adakian . In 1943, while still a member of the military, he co-authored The Battle of the Aleutians with Cpl. Robert Colodny, under the direction of an infantry intelligence officer, Major Henry W. Hall. While in the Aleutians, he developed emphysema . After

7412-443: The jungle kingdom of Tropica, ruled by Queen Desira; the undersea kingdom of the Shark Men, ruled by King Kala; and the flying city of the Hawkmen, ruled by Prince Vultan . They are joined in several early adventures by Prince Thun of the Lion Men. Eventually, Ming is overthrown, and Mongo is ruled by a council of leaders led by Barin. Flash and friends visit Earth for a series of adventures before returning to Mongo and crashing in

7521-428: The kingdom of Tropica, later reuniting with Barin and others. Flash and his friends then travel to other worlds before returning once again to Mongo, where Barin, now married to Ming's daughter Princess Aura , has established a peaceful rule (except for frequent revolts led by Ming or by one of his many descendants). In the 1950s, Flash became an astronaut who travelled to other planets besides Mongo. The long story of

7630-463: The last four years of his life with Hellman. "Not all of that time was easy, and some of it very bad", she wrote, but, "guessing death was not too far away, I would try for something to have afterwards." Hammett died in Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan on January 10, 1961, of lung cancer , diagnosed just two months beforehand. A veteran of both world wars, Hammett is buried at Arlington National Cemetery . Many of Hammett's papers are held by

7739-447: The last two episodes, when Flash, Dale and Zarkov returned to Earth. They make a crash landing in Malaysia , where they meet Jungle Jim , the star of another of Alex Raymond's comic strips. The series ended on October 26, 1935, with Flash and Dale's marriage. The next week, The Adventures of Jungle Jim picked up in that Saturday timeslot. Two days later, on October 28, The Further Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon debuted as

7848-493: The magazine Robinson , under the name "Guy l'Éclair". Dale Arden was named Camille in the French translation. In Australia, the character and strip were retitled Speed Gordon to avoid a negative connotation of the word "Flash". (At the time, the predominant meaning of "flashy" was "showy", connoting dishonesty.) However, events in the 1930s affected the strip's distribution. Newspapers in Nazi Germany were forbidden to carry

7957-530: The most influential comics, and that its art emphasized a "romantic baroque ". Flash Gordon (along with Buck Rogers ) was a big influence on later science fiction comic strips, such as the American Don Dixon and the Hidden Empire (1935 to 1941) by Carl Pfeufer and Bob Moore. In Italy, Guido Fantoni drew Flash Gordon in 1938, after the prohibition by the fascist regime. In Belgium, Edgar P. Jacobs

8066-612: The name "Phil Corrigan" in the 1940s. Decades later, the strip was renamed Secret Agent Corrigan . The nameless agency was also specifically identified as the FBI , but this would be downplayed in the '70s as the Bureau weathered bad publicity and was once more nameless. After four stories by Hammett, Alex Raymond illustrated two stories written by Don Moore and one written by Leslie Charteris , who then wrote three more stories illustrated by Charles Flanders  [ fr ] . After Charteris left

8175-481: The narratives of the two strips together. He also introduced a number of villains, including criminal matriarch Millicent Murkley (1967), hitman Joe Ice (1969), and Corrigan's nemesis, Doctor Seven (1971). The strip's final artist was veteran George Evans , who wrote and drew it from 1980 to his retirement in 1996. Evans introduced two romantic interests for Corrigan: Anina Kreemar, the wealthy niece of Corrigan's bureau chief, and Corrigan's friendly rival Jennever Brand,

8284-795: The need for him to earn money to support the family. He left school when he was 13 years old and held several jobs before working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency . He served as an operative for Pinkerton from 1915 to February 1922, with time off to serve in World War I . While working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Baltimore, he learned the trade and worked in the Continental Trust Building (now known as One Calvert Plaza). He said that while with

8393-459: The order of initial publication. Unfinished writings, fragments, drafts, screen stories, and stories that were later reworked into novels are listed separately below. All 28 Continental Op stories and one unfinished story have been collected in their original unabridged forms in The Big Book of the Continental Op (2017). Examples of Hammett's advertising copy for the Albert S. Samuels Company,

8502-441: The original publications. Some of these digests were reprinted as hardcovers by World Publishing under the imprint Tower Books . The anthologies were also republished as Dell mapbacks . An important collection, The Big Knockover and Other Stories , edited by Lillian Hellman, helped revive Hammett's literary reputation in the 1960s and fostered a new series of anthologies. However, most of these used Dannay's abridged version of

8611-399: The project. De Laurentiis also discussed hiring Sergio Leone to helm the Flash Gordon film; Leone declined because he believed the script was not faithful to the original Raymond comic strips. Finally, De Laurentiis hired Mike Hodges to direct the Flash Gordon film. Hodges' 1980 Flash Gordon film stars former Playgirl - centerfold Sam J. Jones in the title role. Its plot

8720-470: The release of defendants arrested for political reasons." The trustees were Hammett, who was chairman, Robert W. Dunn , and Frederick Vanderbilt Field . The CRC was designated a Communist front group by the US Attorney General . Hammett endorsed Henry A. Wallace in the 1948 United States presidential election . The CRC's bail fund gained national attention on November 4, 1949, when bail in

8829-401: The role of Hammett in the 1992 made-for-TV film Citizen Cohn . Sam Shepard played Hammett in the 1999 Emmy -nominated biographical television film Dash and Lilly along with Judy Davis as Hellman. Hammett's influence on popular culture has continued well after his death. For example, in 1975, the film The Black Bird starred George Segal in the role of Sam Spade, Jr.; the film

8938-507: The sleuths in Hammett's Thin Man series. The book was made into a film of the same name and released in 2008. Later, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan authored several books whose main characters are named for Hammett and his partner. In 2011, they published the YA suspenseful romance, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares . That was followed by the sequels The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily in 2016 and Mind

9047-406: The stories. The first collection that prints stories in their original unedited forms is Crime Stories & Other Writings (2001) edited by Steven Marcus (especially after the third printing that incorporates the original text of This King Business ). Subsequent collections that print the original texts include Lost Stories (2005), The Hunter and Other Stories (2013), and The Big Book of

9156-480: The strip in 1936, scripts were credited to a King Features house name, "Robert Storm". Nicholas Afonsky drew the strip for most of 1938, followed by Austin Briggs until 1940. Mel Graff  [ fr ] took over the art in 1940 and began writing the strip as well in 1942, devising the name Phil Corrigan. The name Phil Corrigan was inspired by Phil Cardigan, a character in one of Graff's earlier comic strips, The Adventures of Patsy . Graff also gave X-9 more of

9265-483: The strip in 1990, various artists and writers worked on Flash Gordon . The daily strip was ended in 1993. The final artist to work on the Flash Gordon Sunday strip was Jim Keefe . Keefe was occasionally assisted on the strip by other artists, including Williamson, John Romita Sr. and Joe Kubert . King Features ended the Flash Gordon newspaper strip in 2003, although re-runs of Keefe's strip still appear in

9374-433: The strip was written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by Al Williamson . After a few years, Goodwin eliminated Wilda with an off-panel divorce in order to free up Corrigan for romance with the various attractive women he encountered. The attractive and intelligent Karla Kopak appeared in a number of stories between 1974 and 1980. Making her the niece of Kalla Kopak, a character from the comic strip Brick Bradford , Goodwin tied

9483-489: The syndicate was unable to reach an agreement with Burroughs. King Features then turned to Alex Raymond, one of their staff artists, to create the story. One source for Flash Gordon was the Philip Wylie novel When Worlds Collide (1933). The book's themes of an approaching planet threatening the Earth, and an athletic hero, his girlfriend, and a scientist traveling to the new planet by rocket, were adapted by Raymond for

9592-484: The title X9 in Sweden. Its two backup titles were generally " Jungle Jim " and " The Phantom ". In 1971 the magazine was renamed Agent X9 and retooled into an anthology title, publishing many different comics in frequent rotation, mostly around the themes of detectives , agents and adventures . After this, the feature "Secret Agent X-9" no longer appeared in every issue. In Sweden, the various daily strip incarnations of

9701-451: The tuberculosis he contracted in World War I, and then, according to Hellman, "jail had made a thin man thinner, a sick man sicker ... I knew he would now always be sick." Hellman wrote that during the 1950s, Hammett became "a hermit", his decline evident in the clutter of his rented "ugly little country cottage", where "signs of sickness were all around: now the phonograph was unplayed,

9810-607: The two have a daughter, Philda, in 1952. Graff also created a series of often grotesque villains with colorful names, including Blue-Jaw (introduced in 1944), Goldplate (1945), Liver-Lips (1946, 1947), and Grape-Eyes (1947). There was also Corrigan's criminal lookalike, Phil Haze (1946). Additionally, Corrigan encountered the beautiful criminal businesswoman Bargain Benny (1954) and the endearing rogue Prince Iguana (1953). Corrigan also had two professional colleagues in addition to his brother: Joe Florida (1948) and Joe Otterfoot (1952). Otterfoot

9919-420: The typewriter untouched, the beloved foolish gadgets unopened in their packages." He may have meant to start a new literary life with the novel Tulip , but left it unfinished, perhaps because he was "just too ill to care, too worn out to listen to plans or read contracts. The fact of breathing, just breathing, took up all the days and nights." Hammett could no longer live alone, and they both knew it, so he spent

10028-594: The war, Hammett returned to political activism, "but he played that role with less fervour than before". He was elected president of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) on June 5, 1946, at a meeting held at the Hotel Diplomat in New York City, and "devoted the largest portion of his working time to CRC activities". In 1946, a bail fund was created by the CRC "to be used at the discretion of three trustees to gain

10137-607: The war. The final 13 episodes were filmed in Marseille , France . In this series, Flash, Dale ( Irene Champlin ) and Dr. Zarkov (Joseph Nash) worked for the Galactic Bureau of Investigation in the year 3203. The actual timeline was established in one episode, "Deadline at Noon", in which Flash, Dale and Dr. Zarkov went back in time to Berlin in the year 1953. The GBI agents traveled in the Skyflash and Skyflash II spaceships. The series

10246-538: Was a sequel and parody of the Maltese Falcon . The 1976 comedic film Murder by Death spoofed a number of famous literary sleuths, including several of Hammett's. The film's characters included Sam Diamond and Dick and Dora Charleston, which were parodies of Hammett's Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles. In 2006, Rachel Cohn published the YA novel, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist , whose main characters were named for

10355-418: Was also an influence on early superhero comics characters. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster based Superman 's uniform of tights and a cape on costumes worn by Flash Gordon. Bob Kane 's drawing of Batman on the cover of Detective Comics No. 27 (the first appearance of the character) was based on a 1937 Alex Raymond drawing of Flash Gordon. Dennis Neville modeled the comics hero Hawkman 's costume on

10464-588: Was baptized a Catholic and grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore . Hammett's family moved to Baltimore when he was four years old in 1898, and for the most part, it was the city where he lived until he left permanently in 1920 when he was 26 years old. As a teen, Hammett attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, but his formal education ended during his first year of high school; he dropped out in 1908 due to his father's declining health and

10573-516: Was commissioned to produce a science fiction comic strip in the style of Flash Gordon . Jacobs' new strip, Le Rayon U ("The U-Ray") began serial publication in Bravo in 1943. This version had text boxes which described the action and the dialogue, in the style of many Belgian comics of the time, similar to Hal Foster 's version of Tarzan and Prince Valiant . In 1974, Jacobs reformatted Le Rayon U in order to include speech bubbles. This version

10682-440: Was found guilty of contempt of court . Hammett served time in a West Virginia federal penitentiary, where, according to Lillian Hellman, he was assigned to clean toilets. Hellman noted in her eulogy of Hammett that he submitted to prison rather than reveal the names of the contributors to the fund because "he had come to the conclusion that a man should keep his word." By 1952, Hammett's popularity had declined as result of

10791-529: Was graceful, imaginative and soaring" and included it on a list of the most important American science fiction comics. In an article about Raymond for The Comics Journal , R.C. Harvey declared that Raymond's Flash Gordon displayed "a technical virtuosity matched on the comics pages only by Harold Foster in Prince Valiant ". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction stated that Flash Gordon ' s "elaborately shaded style and exotic storyline" made it one of

10900-449: Was living in San Francisco in the 1920s; streets and other locations in San Francisco are frequently mentioned in his stories. He said, "I do take most of my characters from real life." His novels were some of the first to use dialogue that sounded authentic to the era. "I distrust a man that says when . If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." The bulk of his early work, featuring

11009-475: Was nominated for her portrayal of Lillian Hellman. Hammett was the subject of a 1982 prime time PBS biography, The Case of Dashiell Hammett , that won a Peabody Award and a special Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Frederic Forrest portrayed Hammett semifictionally as the protagonist in the 1982 film Hammett , based on the novel of the same name by Joe Gores . He would reprise

11118-454: Was not a critical success on release. Melody Anderson co-starred with Jones as Dale Arden, alongside Chaim Topol as Dr. Hans Zarkov, Max von Sydow as Ming, Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan, Peter Wyngarde as Klytus and Ornella Muti as Princess Aura. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis , with ornate production designs and costumes by Danilo Donati , the bright colors and retro effects were inspired directly by

11227-538: Was originally designed as a television film but NBC decided to change it into an animated series. Filmation produced this successful animated television movie, written by Star Trek writer Samuel A. Peeples , before they began their Saturday morning series, but the television movie did not actually air until 1982. It was critically well-received, and is considered one of the best film versions of Flash Gordon, though it would never be re-broadcast following its premiere. This movie has yet to be commercially released in

11336-570: Was produced in Canada in early 2007. Under an agreement with King Features Syndicate , the series was produced by Reunion Pictures of Vancouver with Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. of RHI Entertainment serving as Executive Producers. Sci-Fi Channel premiered its new Flash Gordon series in the United States on August 10, 2007. The traditional primary supporting characters of Ming, Dale Arden, and Dr. Hans Zarkov were drastically altered. Eric Johnson , best known for his earlier work on

11445-490: Was published in Tintin magazine and in book form by Dargaud - Le Lombard . The British comic The Trigan Empire , by Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence , also drew on Flash Gordon for its artistic style. In Thailand Flash Gordon was a big influence for classic thai comics character Chaochaiphomthong ( เจ้าชายผมทอง ) (meaning "prince golden hair") a sword and magic hero created by Jullasak Amornvej in 1958. Flash Gordon

11554-547: Was still working on the film, albeit it would now be live action instead of animation. Steve Holland starred in a 1954–55 live-action television series which ran for 39 episodes. The first 26 episodes had the distinction of being filmed in West Berlin , Germany , less than a decade after the end of World War II . This is notable, given that some episodes show the real-life destruction still evident in Germany several years after

11663-423: Was syndicated, appearing on stations affiliated with the long-defunct DuMont Network , and many other independent stations in the United States. It was recut into a movie in 1957. In 1979, Filmation produced an animated series , often referred to as The New Adventures of Flash Gordon , though it is actually titled Flash Gordon . The expanded title was used to distinguish it from previous versions. The project

11772-435: Was well received by newspaper readers, becoming one of the most popular American comic strips of the 1930s. As with Buck Rogers , the success of Flash Gordon resulted in numerous licensed products being sold, including pop-up books , coloring books , and toy spaceships and rayguns. The Flash Gordon comic strip ran as a Sunday strip from 1934 until 2003, and daily strip from 1940 to 1944 and 1951 to 1992. Reprints of

11881-584: Was written by Goodwin and drawn by Williamson. The other parts are uncredited. In June, 1988, a second series featuring X-9 titled "The Official Secret Agent" was published by Pioneer Comics, also featuring stories written by Goodwin and drawn by Williamson. It lasted seven issues. Secret Agent X-9 has had a long history in European comic books. Agent X9 , in Scandinavia and the Nordic countries, started in 1969 under

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