In the early 1970s, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci considered filming an adaptation of the novel and wrote a first draft infused with political themes typical of his work. A short while after, he wrote a second draft that was more faithful to Hammett's story. For the role of the Op he considered Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson (who had played a hard-boiled detective in Roman Polanski's neo-noir film "Chinatown"), and Clint Eastwood (who had played the Op-inspired "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy). At some point, Bertolucci discussed this project with Warren Beatty in Rome. In 1982, Bertolucci moved to Los Angeles to begin production, but the project was shelved.