The detective characters whether fictional or inspired by a true detective are always cherished by the people and Sam Spade is also amongst one of these cherished characters. Sam Spade is a famous fictional character created by Dashiell Hammett, a well-known crime novel writer and creator of the work of fiction “The Maltese Falcon”.
Hammett wrote this novel in the year 1930 where he introduced this fictional character, Sam Spade and made it one of the truly treasured private eye detectives. Based on some of the Hammett’s renowned novels, a few movies were also featured starring Sam Spade as the private eye detective.
Initially, the novel “The Maltese Falcon” was published in the pulp magazine and became popular for adding more strength to the hard boiled characters of fictional detectives. Some of the writers like Raymond Chandler were inspired from Sam Spade and this could be clearly seen in their fictional characters like Philip Marlowe.
Introduction
Sam Spade has been depicted wonderfully in the novels and is not just an inspiration from the local detectives. The writer has blended different features and has added them to the character of Sam Spade to make it more powerful than other private eye detectives.
Sam has its own way and techniques of solving the mysteries which make him quite unique as compared to other detectives. His being intellect, aptitude, keeping all the details in mind, minute eye, determination to solve the case and being analytical while solving cases made him popular and well-accepted amongst the readers.
Sam Spade has been shown as a man who faces the harder part of life and tries to make it easier for others by taking all the pains. His fortitude to solve the anonymity of a case keeps him in style and in the form of the character.
Hammett has been writing several short stories, but had never introduced a character like Sam Spade. However, in “The Maltese Falcon” when the fictional detective character was brought up, readers were quite amazed to spot one character packed with all such features.
Some people believed that the character of Sam Spade was very close to actor Humphrey Bogart who was actually featured in the third season. In this season, Bogart portrayed the character as an exemplary detective which was appreciated by the people. In the year 1931, the film version of Sam Spade was featured starring Ricardo Cortez in the lead role as Spade.
This film was not released in the same year due to some reasons, so its second version was made which again could not leave any impression on the viewers.
Short Stories and Other Collections
Different short stories were released in the magazines where Sam was focused like “A man called Spade”, “Too Many Have Lived” and “They can Only Hang You Once”. Numerous films were also released starring Sam Spade as the private eye detective like “The Maltese Falcon”, “The Black Bird”, “The Strange Case of the End of Civilization” and lots more. This fictional character created by Dashiell Hammett proved as an inspiration for many other detective characters.
