Where did the term "hard-boiled" used to describe detective heroes in
film noir classics like "The Maltese Falcon" first originate?

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Clarification of Question by scotru-ga on 02 Jun 2004 02:41 PDT

Thanks for this information.  In particular I'd like to know who
coined it's use in the context of describing detective film heroes.

Scotru,

You've already gotten a lot of help from the site members, but I
wanted to elaborate on what they had said and give you an answer.

According to this site 
http://www.litandphil.org.uk/crime3.htm

Raymond Chandler (1888 - 1959), coined the phrase Hard-Boiled,
relating to detectives.

"It was Chandler who wrote the code for detectives of this period in
his essay The Simple Art of Murder, in which he also coined the phrase
"hard-boiled"

"The market for fiction written in this vein was underpinned by the
continuing success of pulp magazines like Black Mask and the emergence
of cinema film noir. Not all writers followed Chandler?s code, but all
fictional detectives were influenced by it, from Mickey Spillane?s
violently entertaining Mike Hammer to John Ross Macdonald?s
intellectual detective Lew Archer."

So, while the characters that fit that description were around for a
while... The phrase didn't come around for about 8-10 years after the
type of character was created.

"The master of ?hard-boiled? detective fiction, Dashiell Hammett, had
published short stories as early as 1922 but his first real success
came in the 1930s, with the publication of The Maltese Falcon. It was
Hammett who created the archetypal private eye, Sam Spade, weaving in
his own experiences as a Pinkerton investigator."


I'm glad the site members and I as a reseacher could help you out.

Nenna-GA
Google Answers Researcher

Thanks match for the information--especially to the commentors who
gave me a lot of good info first--I wish I could reward you folks too!

Origin of the word goes back to 1886.
The definition was quoted from the Encyclopedia Britannica
(Merriam-Webster's Collegiate=AE Dictionary)
hard-boiled adj. (1886) 1 a: devoid of sentimentality: tough <a drill
sergeant> b: of, relating to, or being a detective story featuring a
tough unsentimental protagonist and a matter-of-fact attitude towards
violence
2: hardheaded, practical <handle aid programs on a friendly but
business basis --N.Y. Times>

Contrary to the previous comment, but I found this:

"It was [Raymond] Chandler who wrote the code for detectives of this
period in his essay The Simple Art of Murder, in which he also coined
the phrase "hard-boiled".

http://www.litandphil.org.uk/crime3.htm

The internet shows several origins for the expression hard-boiled:

http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/sayingsh.htm

Hard-boiled - toughly practical, sometimes even callous
An Americanism from the boiling of cloth, especially the material for
men's hats, to make it stiff and hard. The process became a popular
metaphor for similar characteristics in human behavior or attitudes.

http://members.aol.com/MG4273/spectre.htm

On the splash page, Jim Corrigan is described as a hard-boiled
detective. By 1940, this term had been used hundreds of times in
mystery pulp magazines: it had been in common use there since the
early 1930's. In later Spectre tales, this would soon be changed to
"hard-fisted". The term hard-boiled perhaps has connotations that the
editors of More Fun Comics, or Siegel himself, did not like. Jim
fights more with his fists than with guns, unlike hard-boiled pulp
detectives. And while the Spectre's world is full of criminals, there
is no sleaze in it, unlike many hard-boiled pulp tales: aside from its
violence, More Fun Comics was squeaky clean, like other early comic
books.

http://www.lonelybusiness.com/hardboiled.html

The term hard boiled was first used in cooking recipes to describe
hard boiled eggs. It eventually came to mean someone who was 'cynical,
stoic, and emotionally untouchable.' They got that way through living
on the city streets where the harsh reality surrounding them meant
they had to harden themselves.
The idea of a tough, stoic hero has developed from cowboy fiction and
mythology. In the second half of the 19th century, pulp novels were
incredibly popular. They were so called because they were printed on
cheap, pure wood pulp paper. The stories usually told of the West or
of War, and normally featured a young man as the lead character who
must cope with a strange environment. The only way to survive is to
adapt quickly.

http://www.bartleby.com/185/53.html
Hard-boiled seems to have originated among the Americans in France. It
is one of the few specimens of army slang that shows any sign of
surviving in the general speech.