DASHIELL HAMMETT
Signed and notarized 1930 contract selling Paramount the rights to one of his stories
Typed Contract signed: "Dashiell Hammett", 4 pages, 8½x11, separate sheets. No place, but County of Los Angeles, 1930 November 26. Contract between Hammett and Paramount Publix Corporation regarding the sale of the rights "to an original story entitled AFTER SCHOOL written by the seller [Hammett]." Hammett was paid "the sum of Five Thousand ($5000.00) Dollars, receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged." Countersigned by the Executive Manager of Paramount Publix Corporation. Lightly creased. Nicked at upper right blank corner of first page, file holes at blank left margins. Fine condition. Accompanied by typed notarized statement signed: "Alfred A. Grosser" as Notary Public, 1 page, 8½x11. Attesting that "personally appeared DASHIELL HAMMETT, personally known to me to be the person whose name is subscribed to the foregoing instrument...." Lightly creased, chipped at upper right blank corner. File holes at blank left margin. Fine condition. After School became City Streets, released in 1931 and starring Gary Cooper. Although he wrote only five novels, Hammett introduced three of detective fiction's most memorable characters: Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man. Paramount's movie house division, Publix Theaters, changed its name to Paramount Publix the year this contract was signed. Battered by the Depression, Paramount Publix went into receivership in 1933, but the reorganized parent company survived and prospered as Paramount Pictures. Two items.