RAYMOND CHANDLER, A MASTER LETTER - WRITER, TOO - NYTimes.com RAYMOND CHANDLER, A MASTER LETTER - WRITER, TOO By EDWIN McDOWELL Published: August 31, 1981 DURING the long, insomniac evenings after his wife had gone to bed, Raymond Chandler sat in the study of his home in Southern California and corresponded with people from all over the world. For almost 20 years he expressed a wide range of opinions to editors, publishers, agents, authors and admirers of his detective fiction. Chandler, author of ''The Big Sleep,'' ''Farewell, My Lovely'' and ''The Long Goodbye'' and creator of the fictional detective Philip Marlowe, had harsh words for Alfred Hitchcock's treatment of screenwriters, lectured E.

Howard Hunt on the ethics of plagiarizing from oneself, declared that the only writing school necessary is to ''analyze and imitate'' and fulminated against ''the literary life'': ''all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle to make something important which we all know will be gone forever in a few years.'' Chandler's passions and prejudices are on full display in ''Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler,'' edited by Frank MacShane, which Columbia University Press will publish on Oct. 26. Mr. MacShane, author of ''The Life of Raymond Chandler'' and ''The Life of John O'Hara,'' writes in the introduction that Chandler, who died in 1959, was ''one of the finest letter writers American literature has produced over the last 200 years.'' He adds that Chandler wanted to express his thoughts and feeling to whoever would write him in return. One who did was Ian Fleming, who sent him a letter after Chandler reviewed ''Moonraker'' for The Sunday Times of London. Chandler replied: ''I thought my review was no more than you deserved and I tried to write it in such a way that the good part could be quoted and the bad parts left out.

After all, old boy, there had to be some bad parts. I think you will have to make up your mind what kind of a writer you are going to be.'' Cops and Crooks To Eric Partridge, the English literary critic and lexicographer, Chandler wrote: ''Incidentally, it doesn't follow that a man who has been in stir writes the best prison lingo any more than it follows that a man who has been a police officer writes the best detective stories. Cops and crooks are readers of crime literature, and I have no doubt that many a Western sheriff has ornamented his language and perhaps even his costume from a study of six-gun literature.'' Seeking an interview, Chandler wrote to Luciano Lucania, who was known as ''Lucky Luciano'' and who was living in Naples after having been deported from the United States for criminal activities. ''Some of my questions to you may be rather brutal,'' he said, ''but if you decline to answer them, there will be no record that they have been asked.

There will be nothing published by me which you do not say, but of course, I cannot be responsible for editorial comment.'' Chandler's sympathetic article based on that interview, titled ''My Friend Luco'' and written for The Sunday Times of London, was never published. In a 1950 letter to W. Somerset Maugham, Chandler said: ''I think it's rather a pity that somewhere along the line, seeing you have had time for so many things, you did not write a detective story. Not only would it have given us something to shoot at, but it would have quieted my long annoyance with those who gabble about the 'classic' detective story. We should have had at least one specimen to which the term might be applied without idiocy.'' 'Vicious Propaganda' He returned to the subject in a letter to Maugham the following year, remarking on a recent visit from J.B. Priestley, who told Chandler that he wrote well and that he should write a straight novel. ''Of course I have heard this before in other connections,'' Chandler said. ''If you write well, you should not be writing a mystery. Mysteries should only be written by people who can't write.

I regard this as vicious propaganda from the Edmund Wilson crowd. Obviously you can't expect detective fiction to be anything but subliterary, to use Edmund Wilson's word, if you insist on weeding out from that field anyone who shows any pretentions to skill or imagination in the use of words.'' But Chandler reserved much of his contempt for Hollywood, where he helped write screenplays, including the one for James M. Cain's ''Double Indemnity.'' When he had earned enough to leave, he and his wife, Cissy, moved to La Jolla, where they lived for most of the rest of their lives. ''Like every writer, or almost every writer, who goes to Hollywood, I was convinced in the beginning that there must be some discoverable method of working in pictures which would not be completely stultifying to whatever creative talent one might happen to possess,'' he lamented to Hamish Hamilton, his English publisher. ''But like others before me I discovered that this was a dream. It's nobody's fault; it's part of the structure of the industry. Too many people have too much to say about a writer's work. It ceases to be his own. And after a while he ceases to care about it.

He has brief enthusiasms, but they are destroyed before they can flower. People who can't write tell him how to write.'' A Waste of Time Chandler wrote but never mailed an embittered letter to Alfred Hitchcock, who disregarded Chandler's suggestions for the script of ''Strangers on a Train'': ''If you wanted something written in skim milk, why on earth did you bother to come to me in the first place?'' he asked. ''What a waste of money! What a waste of time! It's no answer to say that I was well paid. Nobody can be adequately paid for wasting his time.'' One of the most unusual Chandler letters was written in 1952 to Mr. Hunt, who later became an aide to President Richard M. Nixon and served 32 months in prison for his part in the Watergate conspiracy. Mr. Hunt has written more than 50 novels, many of them paperbacks under a pseudonym, but his current hardcover novel, ''The Gaza Intercept'' (Stein & Day), was recently published under his own name. However, at the time Chandler wrote to him, Mr. Hunt was assigned to the American Embassy in Mexico City.

When the editors of Pocket Books sent Chandler a letter that Mr. Hunt had sent to them, accusing Chandler of plagiarizing from his own articles in a detective magazine of the 1930's, the author replied that he had a perfect right to use them. ''I am the copyright owner, I can use my material in any way I see fit,'' he declared. He then added that ''a wide selection of opinions on the subject'' had persuaded him to use them because a whole generation might possibly want to read those stories that had been written for an ephemeral publication. The last five years of Chandler's life, after his wife's death in 1954, were marked by frantic attempts to find a solution to loneliness, Mr. MacShane writes. One month before his death he wrote to Maurice Guinness, an English detective novelist, who suggested that Philip Marlowe marry. Chandler disagreed. ''I think he will always have a fairly shabby office, a lonely house, a number of affairs, but no permanent connection.'' he replied. ''I think he will always be awakened at some inconvenient hour by some inconvenient person to do some inconvenient job.

I see him always in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never quite defeated.'' Illustrations: Photo of Ian Fleming Photo of Lucky Luciano Photo of Alfred Hitchcock Photo of Somerset Maugham Photo of Raymond Chandler Raymond Chandler (Author of The Big Sleep) edit data Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at age forty-four, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published just seven full novels during his lifetime (though an eighth in progress at his death was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been realized into motion pictures, some several times. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died on Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.

In 1932, at age forty-four, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published just seven full novels during his lifetime (though an eighth in progress at his death was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been realized into motion pictures, some several times. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died on March 26, 1959, in La Jolla, California. Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature, and is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction.

Chandler's Philip Marlowe, along with Hammett's Sam Spade, are considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective," both having been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart, whom many considered to be the quintessential Marlowe. Some of Chandler's novels are considered to be important literary works, and three are often considered to be masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye is praised within an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery".

...more The Big Sleep and Other Novels : Raymond Chandler : 9780141182612 The Big Sleep and Other Novels Paperback US$12.29 US$20.55 You save US$8.26 Free delivery worldwide Add to basket Add to wishlist Description Raymond Chandler was America's preeminent writer of detective fiction, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition of The Big Sleep and Other Novels collects three of the best novels to feature his hard-drinking, philosophising PI, Philip Marlowe. Raymond Chandler created the fast talking, trouble seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel The Big Sleep in 1939. Often imitated but never bettered, it is in Marlowe's long shadow that every fictional detective must stand - and under the influence of Raymond Chandler's addictive prose that every crime author must write. Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family - and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures - is the background to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream.

The hard-boiled detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in Farewell My Lovely, on the trail of a missing nightclub crooner. And the inimitable Marlowe is able to prove that trouble really is his business in Raymond Chandler's brilliant epitaph, The Long Goodbye. Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was born in Chicago. It was during the Depression era that he seriously turned his hand to writing and his first published story appeared in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1933, followed six years later by his first novel, The Big Sleep, adapted into Howard Hawks' classic 1946 film noir, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. If you liked The Big Sleep and Other Novels, you might enjoy Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards that others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since.' Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy 'Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angelos with a romantic presence' Ross Macdonald, author of The Drowning Pool show more Product details 128 x 194 x 32mm | 439.98g Publication date The 100 best novels: No 62 – The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939) | Books | The Guardian The 100 best novels The 100 best novels: No 62 – The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939) Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled debut brings to life the seedy LA underworld – and Philip Marlowe, the archetypal fictional detective Humphrey Bogart with Martha Vickers in Howard Hawks's 1946 film version of The Big Sleep.

Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros Share on Messenger Close Enter Philip Marlowe, one of the great characters in the Anglo-American novel, a protagonist to rival and possibly surpass Sherlock Holmes. Marlowe holds the key to the enduring appeal of this novel and the six that followed. In 1951, Chandler told his publisher, “It begins to look as though I were tied to this fellow for life.” Maybe he should not have been surprised. Chandler fully understood the archetypal fictional detective, and had been polishing the character for years. In The Simple Art of Murder (1950) he describes such a man in a famous passage: “He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man… He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.” Chandler might have been describing Philip Marlowe, who made his debut in this first novel, after several appearances in Chandler’s pulp fiction stories.

He once observed of his celebrated style: “I’m an intellectual snob who happens to have a fondness for the American vernacular, largely because I grew up on Latin and Greek.” Chandler, like PG Wodehouse , who will feature later in this series, had been educated at Dulwich College, a school founded by Edward Alleyn, the great actor-manager whose company, the Admiral’s Men, included the poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare’s great rival. In Chandler’s stories, his protagonist also appears as “Mallory”. He is a 20th-century knight who treads the mean streets of Hollywood and Santa Monica, and who also visits the houses of the stinking rich, with their English butlers, corrosive secrets and sinister vices. Chandler plays with this medieval conceit in surreal metaphors. For instance: “It was a blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.” In The Big Sleep – the title refers to the gangster euphemism for death – Marlowe is summoned to the home of old General Sternwood whose wild daughter, Carmen, is being blackmailed by a seedy bookseller.

But The Big Sleep transcends its genre, moving WH Auden to write that Chandler’s thrillers “should be read and judged, not as escape literature, but as works of art”. The plot, notorious for its complexity, soon spirals into a world of pornography, gambling and Hollywood lowlife. It’s not flawless, and there are some loose ends. When Howard Hawks filmed the novel he asked, “Who killed the chauffeur?” and Chandler replied that he had no idea. To him, plot was always subordinate to character, mood and atmosphere. A note on the text Chandler published his first detective story, in the pulp fiction magazine Black Mask, at the end of 1933. He explained this departure to his British publisher: “Wandering up and down the Pacific coast in an automobile I began to read pulp magazines, because they were cheap enough to throw away and because I never had at any time any taste for the kind of thing which is known as women’s magazines.

This was in the great days of the Black Mask… and it struck me that some of the writing was pretty forceful and honest.” Between these beginnings and 1938, when he began to write The Big Sleep, he wrote 21 Black Mask stories, developing and honing the qualities of his mature work. A late starter, he came to this world as an outsider, a middle-aged English public schoolboy adrift in California. However, he caught on quick. The early stories have several Marlowe prototypes, LA settings, good and bad cops mixed into the regular crime cocktail of violence, drugs, sex and booze. When he came to write The Big Sleep, Chandler “cannibalised” (his own description) his stories. The central plot of the novel comes from two stories, Killer in the Rain (published in 1935) and The Curtain (published in 1936). Both stories were standalone tales, sharing no common characters, but they had similarities. In each, there’s a strong father distressed by his wild daughter. Chandler melded the two fathers to make a new character and also did the same for the stories’ two daughters. There are other sources, too.

Like Carmen Sternwood, his own much-loved wife Cissy had posed nude as a young woman and, like Carmen, taken opium. Marlowe’s alcohol problems reflect Chandler’s own latent alcoholism. In virtually every scene of a Chandler novel, someone is lighting a cigarette, or having a drink. The Big Sleep was published in the spring of 1939. Despite collecting an impressive retinue of literary admirers, including Somerset Maugham and, later, Edmund Wilson, the Knopf (US) edition sold barely 13,000 copies, though it did better in France and England. It did not begin to attract serious international attention until after the appearance of Howard Hawks’s film starring Humphrey Bogart . In 1959, the year of Chandler’s death, his great English admirer Ian Fleming permitted himself a discreet nod of homage. Towards the end of James Bond’s confrontation with Goldfinger, he passes through an airport and buys a book about golf – and the latest Chandler. Three more from Raymond Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1940); The Little Sister (1949); The Long Goodbye (1953).

Detective-Mystery Films Detective-Mystery Films Part 1 | Part 2 | Examples Classic Private Eyes: Classic film noir in the 1940s, from detective novel authors Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, provided a number of private eyes - notably Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Sam Spade - None of the detectives was more impressive than writer Dashiell Hammett's classic and definitive hard-boiled, tough sleuth or shamus named Sam Spade, in John Huston's masterpiece The Maltese Falcon (1941) , a story of the frenzied pursuit of a Middle Eastern statuette. The lead was played by astute actor Humphrey Bogart.

[Ten years earlier, Ricardo Cortez played the role of Sam Spade in Roy Del Ruth's The Maltese Falcon (1931) (aka Dangerous Female).] The Maltese Falcon (1931) - Ricardo Cortez as Spade Satan Met a Lady (1936) - Warren William as Ted Shane (the second adaptation of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon) The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Humphrey Bogart as Spade The Life of Riley (1949) - Howard Duff as voice of Sam Spade (on radio show) The Black Bird (1975) - George Segal as "Sammy" Spade, Jr.

(a comedy sequel to the 1941 film) The Strange Case of the End of Civilization As We Know It (1977, UK) - Mike O'Malley as Spade (a Sherlock Holmes spoof) Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), 4 actors (Lon Satton, Rosita Yarboy, Keith Hodiak, Pepsi Maycock) known as Sam Spade and the Private Eyes Philip Marlowe - Bogey also portrayed novelist Raymond Chandler's gumshoe Philip Marlowe in the tangled intrigue of Howard Hawks' classic detective thriller The Big Sleep (1946) . Tough-guy Bogart also made screen history with his co-star Lauren Bacall in this popular rendition. Other actors have portrayed Raymond Chandler's Marlowe.

Murder, My Sweet (1944) - Dick Powell as Marlowe The Big Sleep (1946) - Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe Lady in the Lake (1947) - Robert Montgomery as Marlowe The Brasher Doubloon (1947) - George Montgomery as Marlowe Philip Marlowe (1959-1960) (TV series, 26 episodes) - Philip Carey as Marlowe Marlowe (1969) - James Garner as Marlowe The Long Goodbye (1973) - Elliot Gould as Marlowe Farewell, My Lovely (1975) - Robert Mitchum as Marlowe The Big Sleep (1978, UK) - Robert Mitchum as Marlowe Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983-1986) (TV series) - Powers Boothe as Marlowe Poodle Springs (1998) (TV movie) - James Caan as Marlowe The following chart helps to differentiate between all the various versions: Raymond Chandler's Noir Novels -- and Related Films Film Title (and Director) The Falcon Takes Over

 (1942) d.

Irving Reis based on the 1940 Raymond Chandler novel, Farewell My Lovely Private eye "Gay Lawrence" (George Sanders) aka The Falcon "Diana Kenyon" (Helen Gilbert) based on the 1940 Raymond Chandler novel, Farewell, My Lovely Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) The Big Sleep (1946) d. Howard Hawks based on Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name - the first of his novels to feature Marlowe Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) Vivian Sternwood Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers) Lady in the Lake (1947) d.

Robert Montgomery based on Raymond Chandler's 1943 novel Philip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) Mountains outside Los Angeles at a resort called Little Fawn Lake Marlowe (1969) an adaptation by Stirling Silliphant of Raymond Chandler's 1949 novel The Little Sister Philip Marlowe (James Garner) a revisionist version of Raymond Chandler's 1954 detective novel The Long Goodbye Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) the third film adaptation of Chandler's 1940 novel, Farewell, My Lovely Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) the second film adaptation of Chandler's 1939 novel Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) Charlotte and Carmilla Sternwood ( Sarah Miles and Candy Clark) London Mike Hammer - Writer Mickey Spillane created the brutal and violent 'hard-boiled' character of Mike Hammer in his debut 1947 trashy novel, I, the Jury. It was also the title of the first Mike Hammer film: I, the Jury (1953), and the later 1982 remake.

The private eye was anti-Communist, very patriotic, carried a Colt .45, and was contemptuous of the legal process, although he respected traditional law enforcement. He had a partner, a secretary named Velda (portrayed variously in the feature films by Margaret Sheridan, Maxine Cooper, Pamela Duncan, and Laurene Landon). There were five 'Mike Hammer' feature films from 1953 to 1982. I, the Jury (1953), UA, filmed in 3-D, starring Biff Elliot Kiss Me Deadly (1955) , UA, d. Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker My Gun Is Quick (1957), UA, starring Robert Bray The Girl Hunters (1963, UK), Colorama Features, with author Mickey Spillane as Hammer!

I, the Jury (1982), 20th Century Fox, a remake of the 1953 film, with Armand Assante as Hammer There were six TV movies in the 1980s and 90s, and four TV series based upon fictitious New York-based private detective Mike Hammer, portrayed by four different actors: Margin for Murder (1981) (TV), with Kevin Dobson as Hammer Murder Me, Murder You (1983) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer More Than Murder (1984) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1986) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (1989) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer Come Die with Me: A Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer Mystery (1994) (TV), with Rob Estes as Hammer Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1957-1959) (syndicated TV series, with 78 episodes), with Darren McGavin Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (19

84-1985) (CBS-TV series, with 24 episodes), with Stacey Keach The New Mike Hammer (1986-1987) (CBS-TV series, with 22 episodes), with Stacey Keach (a continuation of the earlier show) Mike Hammer, Private Eye (1997-1998) (syndicated TV series with 26 episodes), also with Stacey Keach Michael Shayne - This popular, fictional Irish-American private detective was another of the popular pulp detectives in the 1940s.

The character was created by Davis Dresser (pseudonym Brett Halliday) and debuted in the novel Dividend on Death in 1939. The first appearance of Shayne in the movies was in a 7-film series of 20th Century Fox productions (from 1940-1942), starring Lloyd Nolan, and then a 5-film series of low-budget PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) productions (from 1946-1947), starring Hugh Beaumont. Later, an NBC-TV series (from 1960-1961, with 32 episodes) starred Richard Denning as the title character, Michael Shayne.

Michael Shayne – Private Detective (1940), all with Lloyd Nolan, from 20th Century Fox Sleepers West (1941) Murder Is My Business (1946), all with Hugh Beaumont, from PRC Larceny in Her Heart (1946) Blonde for a Day (1946) Three on a Ticket (1947) Too Many Winners (1947) Nancy Drew - The adventures of 16 year-old, quick-witted, school-girl sleuth Nancy Drew, adapted from the series of mass-produced books from Edward Stratemeyer and his daughter Harriet S. Adams (with nom de plume Carolyn Keene), became the subject of four Warner Bros. films in the late 1930s, starring teenaged actress Bonita Granville: Nancy Drew, Detective (1938), WB, d. William Clemens, with Bonita Granville Nancy Drew - Reporter (1939) Nancy Drew - Trouble Shooter (1939) Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) Nancy Drew (2007), WB, d.

Andrew Fleming, with Emma Roberts Dick Tracy - Dick Tracy was a detective who first appeared in Chester Gould's early 1930s action-adventure comic strip - it became an enduring and popular newspaper comic strip that was drawn by Gould until 1977. Dick Tracy originally appeared in four action-packed Republic Pictures' serial films from 1937 to 1941 (all starring Ralph Byrd), then in four RKO feature films (two with Morgan Conway, and two with Ralph Byrd), and a short-lived TV series and TV pilot. There was a major attempt to revive Dick Tracy with a 1990 film starring Warren Beatty. There was also a popular 1940s radio program. Dick Tracy (1937) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy Returns (1938) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc.

(1941) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy (1945) - RKO, with Morgan Conway Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946) - RKO, with Morgan Conway Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947) - RKO, with Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947) - RKO, with Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy (1950-1951) (ABC-TV series) - with Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy (1967) (The Plot to Kill NATO) (TV series pilot) - with Ray MacDonnell Dick Tracy (1990) - Buena Vista Pictures, with Warren Beatty A Renaissance of Police Detectives: Dana Andrews, an obsessed detective who was assigned to investigate the murder of a beautiful woman (Gene Tierney) and question suspects (Vincent Price and Clifton Webb) in Otto Preminger's classic Laura (1944) , fell in love with a painting of the victim.

In the second film version of Dashiel Hammett's novel about political corruption, The Glass Key (1942), Alan Ladd in one of his earliest films starred opposite Veronica Lake as a deadpan hero. He was often beat up by sado-masochistic gangster William Bendix during his pursuit of the truth. Glenn Ford portrayed an unrestrained police detective in pursuit of his wife's killers and corrupt cops in Fritz Lang's film noirish The Big Heat (1953) . In William Wyler's seminal cop film Detective Story (1951), bitter, tough, and by-the-book NYC detective Kirk Douglas discovered that his wife (Eleanor Parker) had a guilty secret. In two films, Paul Newman portrayed investigative detective Lew Harper: Jack Smight's Harper (1966), and The Drowning Pool (1975).

New life was infused into the detective film genre in the late 60s and the 70s, in stylish, avant-garde homages to the film noir genre, with various private eye/police thrillers: Blake Edwards' Tony Rome (1967) with Frank Sinatra as the private eye John Boorman's stylistic Point Blank (1967) starring Lee Marvin as a double-crossed criminal on the path of revenge to collect $93,000 due to him ("Somebody's gotta pay") award-winning In The Heat Of The Night (1967) with Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs - a black Philadelphian detective assisting in a homicide investigation in the South with a white racist chief of police (Rod Steiger); two sequels with Lieut. Detective Virgil Tibbs came later: They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

(1970) and The Organization (1971) director Peter Yates' cop drama Bullitt (1968) with Steve McQueen (in one of his greatest performances) as a stoic police lieutenant assigned the dangerous task of protecting a star mob witness - its San Francisco car chase sequence is still considered one of the best in film history Eastwood starred as an Arizona deputy brought to NYC to fight crime in Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff (1968) - featuring an exciting motorcycle chase [this was Siegel's and Eastwood's first pairing] Frank Sinatra portrayed a tough NY detective involved in the case of the murder of a homosexual in The Detective (1968) Richard Widmark as a tough Brooklyn cop in Madigan (1968) Alan J.

Pakula's thriller Klute (1971) with small-town detective Donald Sutherland investigating the stalking of a high-priced NYC hooker (Jane Fonda) by a killer Robert Blake as an Arizona motorcycle cop in Electra Glide in Blue (1973) a group of NYC detectives (including Roy Scheider) pursued criminals in innumerable car chases in The Seven-Ups (1973) Charles Bronson starred as a NY cop in LA fighting against a criminal group of Vietnam vets in The Stone Killer (1973) the complex private eye story of cynical J. J.

Gittes (Jack Nicholson) in search of corruption (land-grabs and water rights scandals) in 1930s Los Angeles in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) in director John Sturges' McQ (1974) and Douglas Kickox's Brannigan (1975), John Wayne starred as an aging police officer Robert Mitchum portrayed a weary ex-GI who returned to Japan to help an army friend locate his Mob-kidnapped daughter in The Yakuza (1975) The Dirty Harry Films: In the early 70s and for almost two decades, Clint Eastwood starred as the magnum-packing Dirty Harry. The original film in the series about the fascist, vigilante-hero cop was the action film Dirty Harry (1971) , directed by Eastwood's directorial mentor Don Siegel. It unleashed a flurry of similar, quasi-Mickey Spillane thrillers.

In the first of many sequels, Eastwood starred as the intolerant Harry Callahan on the trail of the elusive 'Scorpio killer': Sudden Impact (1983) The Dead Pool (1988) In the same decade, director William Friedkin's crime thriller The French Connection (1971) won the Best Picture Academy Award for its realistic story of the pursuit of drug kingpins and a shipment of heroin by two unorthodox New York City police detectives (Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle and Roy Scheider). The pursuit of the drug dealers in Marseilles continued in director John Frankenheimer's The French Connection II (1975). Gene Hackman also portrayed a Hollywood detective on the track of a missing, reckless nymphet teenager (a young Melanie Griffith) in the Florida Keys in director Arthur Penn's suspenseful but under-rated Night Moves (1975). In Stephen Frears' satirical British film Gumshoe (1972), Albert Finney as a Liverpool nightclub worker lived out his dream by becoming a detective to solve a murder mystery.

The Lethal Weapon Series: A popular multi-part, LA cop adventure series featured the partner duo of retiring cop Danny Glover and a suicidally-crazed Mel Gibson: Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) Recent Mystery Films: Crime Thrillers In the Coen Brothers' dark Blood Simple (1983), sleazy private eye Emmet Walsh was hired by a jealous husband to kill his adulterous wife (Frances McDormand) and her lover. Their dramatic mystery crime-thriller Fargo (1996) featured Best Actress-winning Frances McDormand as an unconventional, pregnant police investigator named Marge. Anthony Minghella's noirish thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) set in sun-drenched Italy was a Hitchcock-like study of a psychopath and his victims. Another Variety of Mystery Film: Detective Spoofs and Comedies The long-running TV series Dragnet was spoofed by Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd in Tom Mankiewicz' Dragnet (1987).

And Peter Sellers appeared as clumsy, inept, and accident-prone French Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the popular series of slapstick Pink Panther detective comedies in the 60s with theme music supplied by Henry Mancini - and after (recently two films with comedian Steve Martin): Inspector Clouseau Films - The Pink Panther (1963), d. Blake Edwards (with Peter Sellers) A Shot in the Dark (1964), d. Blake Edwards (with Peter Sellers, and two new recurring characters: Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) and houseboy Cato (Burt Kwouk)) Inspector Clouseau (1968, UK/US), d. Bud Yorkin (with Alan Arkin as Inspector Clouseau) The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), d. Blake Edwards (again with Peter Sellers) The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), d. Blake Edwards (with Peter Sellers) Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), d. Blake Edwards (with Sellers' last appearance in a Pink Panther film, two years before his death) Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), d.

Blake Edwards, (with Peter Sellers, but composed only of out-takes and other clips) Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), d. Blake Edwards, (with Roger Moore as Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau - (as Turk Thrust II), and Ted Wass as Sgt. Clifton Sleigh - a Clouseau knock-off) Son of the Pink Panther (1993), d. Blake Edwards (with Roberto Benigni as Gendarme Jacques Gambrelli - the illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau) The Pink Panther (2006), d. Shawn Levy (with Steve Martin) The Pink Panther 2 (2009), d. Harald Zwart (with Steve Martin) Raymond Chandler Raymond Chandler Raymond Chandler (and others) The complete collection of landmark BBC Radio dramas of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe mysteries. Philip Marlowe is the archetypal noir detective: wisecracking and world-weary, hardboiled yet honourable. This volume includes all eight dramatisations of Raymond Chandler's groundbreaking crime novels featuring his iconic hero. The Big Sleep Marlowe is consulted by a wealthy family man with two big problems: his children.

Farewell My Lovely Marlowe's search for an ex-con's ex-girlfriend leads him into danger. The High Window When rare gold coin is stolen from her collection, Mrs Murdoch hires Philip Marlowe to find it. The Lady in the Lake Businessman Derace Kingsley hires Marlowe to find his estranged wife Crystal. The Little Sister Commissioned to find Orfamay Quest's missing brother, Marlowe is drawn into the glamorous film world of Hollywood. The Long Goodbye Marlowe befriends a drunk named Terry Lennox, but comes to regret doing him a favour. Playback Hired to follow the mysterious Betty Mayfield, Marlowe soon finds that he is being tailed too... Poodle Springs Newly-married Marlowe puts his bride aside to look for a gambler on the run. Starring Toby Stephens as Philip Marlowe, these stylish, suspenseful dramatisations – full of witty, ironic dialogue and colourful characters – bring the beautiful, corrupt world of California in the '40s and '50s to luminous life. Duration: 11 hours approx.

Raymond Chandler (and others) The Lady in the Lake is a classic detective novel by the master of hard-boiled crime, available as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a quickie divorce and marry a Casanova-wannabe named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband insisted. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea lodged firmly in his ear. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe's on the trail of a killer, who leads him out of smoggy LA all the way to a murky mountain lake . . . 'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Raymond Chandler (and others) Hard-boiled detective fiction at its best: Raymond Chandler's best loved novel, The Big Sleep, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.

'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.' Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is hired by wheelchair-bound General Sternwood to discover who is indulging in some petty blackmail. A weary, old man, Sternwood just wants the problem to go away. But Marlowe finds he has his work cut out just keeping Sternwood's wild, devil-may-care daughters out of trouble as they prowl LA's dirtiest and darkest streets. And pretty soon, he's up to his neck in hoodlums and corpses . . . Raymond Chandler (and others) Trouble is My Business is a collection of four riveting novellas from Raymond Chandler. In the first of the four cases in Trouble is My Business, LA PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cops and he's taken pity on the girl. There's nothing like making trouble of your business . . .

The four novellas collected here are quintessential Raymond Chandler: slick, crystal-clear writing that pins the reader to the seat and won't let go until the last page is turned. Praise for Raymond Chandler: 'Chandler's prose flies off the pages like a burst from a Tommy gun. Chandler was perhaps the finest exponent of the fledgling genre now known as pulp fiction' Scottish Field 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set the standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner . . . An original . . . A great artist' Boston Review 'Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since' Paul Auster Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and moved to England with his family when he was twelve. He attended Dulwich College, Alma Mater to some of the twentieth century's most renowned writers. Returning to America in 1912, he settled in California, worked in a number of jobs, and later married.

It was during the Depression era that he seriously turned his hand to writing and his first published story appeared in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1933, followed six years later by his first novel. The Big Sleep introduced the world to Philip Marlowe, the often imitated but never-bettered hard-boiled private investigator. It is in Marlowe's long shadow that every fictional detective must stand - and under the influence of Raymond Chandler's addictive prose that every crime author must write. Raymond Chandler (and others) Killer in the Rain collects together eight classic short stories by Raymond Chandler. It was in the pulp detective magazines of the 1930s that Raymond Chandler's definitive take on the hard-boiled detective story first appeared. Here then, from the well-thumbed pages of 'Black Mask' and 'Dime Detective Magazine', are eight of his finest stories including 'The Man Who Liked Dogs', 'The Lady in the Lake' and 'Bay City Blues'. Sharper than a hoodlum's switchblade, more exciting than an unexpected red-head and stronger than a double shot of whisky, they are packed full of the punchy poetry and laconic wit that makes Chandler the undisputed master of his genre.

'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business. Raymond Chandler (and others) The High Window is a classic novel by the master of hard-boiled crime Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part.

It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA gets cops' noses out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up in jail - or worse, in a box in the ground . . . 'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business.

Raymond Chandler (and others) Playback is a classic novel by Raymond Chandler, the master of hard-boiled crime. Stalking the tawdry neon wilderness of forties and fifties Los Angeles, Raymond Chandler's hard-drinking, wise-cracking Phillip Marlowe is one of the world's most famous fictional detectives. Playback finds Marlowe mixing business with pleasure - getting paid to follow a mysterious and lovely red-head named Eleanor King. And wherever Miss King goes, trouble seems to follow. But she's easy on the eye and Marlowe's happy to do as he's told, all in the name of chivalry, of course. But one dead body later and what started out as a lazy afternoon's snooping soon becomes a deadly cocktail of blackmail, lies, mistaken identity - and murder . . .

'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business. Raymond Chandler 'I pushed her back into the house without saying anything, shut the door. We stood looking at each other inside. She dropped her hand slowly and tried to smile.

Then all expression went out of her white face and it looked as intelligent as the bottom of a shoe box...I lit my cigarette, puffed it slowly for a moment and then asked: "What are you doing here?" Before creating Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler perfected the hardboiled private detective story in the pages of Blask Mask magazine - tough, spare tales of gumshoes and murder, laced with a weary lyricism and deadpan, laconic wit. 'Killer in the Rain' is vintage Chandler, the groundwork for his classic first novel The Big Sleep. Raymond Chandler (and others) Farewell, My Lovely is a classic novel by Raymond Chandler, the master of hard-boiled crime. Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up and he wants Velma back. PI Philip Marlow meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of dangerous gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first and talking later.

And soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life and death . . . 'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business. Raymond Chandler (and others) The Little Sister is a classic detective novel by the master of hard-boiled crime Her name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin.

Or leastways that's what she tells PI Philip Marlowe, offering him a measly twenty bucks for the privilege. But Marlowe's feeling charitable - though it's not long before he wishes he wasn't so sweet. You see, Orrin's trail leads Marlowe to luscious movie starlets, uppity gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed in their necks. When trouble comes calling, sometimes it's best to pretend to be out . . . 'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction.

His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business. Raymond Chandler (and others) The Long Good-bye is a classic novel by Raymond Chandler, the master of hard-boiled crime. Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. He's willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe finds himself drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business. Raymond Chandler (and others) Raymond Chandler’s first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction.

The Big Sleep, Chandler’s first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder. In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women. In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself deep in the tangled affairs of a dead coin collector. In all three novels, Chandler’s hard-edged prose, colourful characters, vivid vernacular, and, above all, his enigmatic loner of a hero, establish his enduring claim to the heights of his chosen genre. Raymond Chandler (and others) Creator of the famous Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler elevated the American hard-boiled detective genre to an art form. His last four novels, published here in one volume, offer ample opportunity to savour the unique and compelling fictional world that made his works modern classics.

The Lady in the Lake moves Marlowe out of his usual habitat of city streets and into the mountains outside Los Angeles in his strange search for a missing woman. The Little Sister takes Marlowe to Hollywood, where he tries to find a sweet young thing’s missing brother, uncovering on the way a little blackmail, a lot of drugs, and more than enough murder. In The Long Goodbye, a case involving a war-scarred drunk and his nymphomaniac wife has Marlowe constantly on the move: a psychotic gangster’s on his trail, he’s in trouble with the cops, and more and more corpses keep turning up. Playback features a well-endowed redhead who leads Marlowe to the California coast to solve a tale of big money and, of course, murder. Throughout these masterpieces, Marlowe’s wry humour and existential sense of his job prove yet again why he has become one of the most recognized and imitated characters in fiction. Raymond Chandler Raymond Chandler was America's preeminent writer of detective fiction, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition of The Big Sleep and Other Novels collects three of the best novels to feature his hard-drinking, philosophising PI, Philip Marlowe.

Raymond Chandler created the fast talking, trouble seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel The Big Sleep in 1939. Often imitated but never bettered, it is in Marlowe's long shadow that every fictional detective must stand - and under the influence of Raymond Chandler's addictive prose that every crime author must write. Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family - and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures - is the background to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream. The hard-boiled detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in Farewell My Lovely, on the trail of a missing nightclub crooner. And the inimitable Marlowe is able to prove that trouble really is his business in Raymond Chandler's brilliant epitaph, The Long Goodbye. Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was born in Chicago.

It was during the Depression era that he seriously turned his hand to writing and his first published story appeared in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1933, followed six years later by his first novel, The Big Sleep, adapted into Howard Hawks' classic 1946 film noir, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. If you liked The Big Sleep and Other Novels, you might enjoy Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards that others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since.' Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy 'Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angelos with a romantic presence' Ross Macdonald, author of The Drowning Pool

Question: The novels 'The Long Goodbye' and 'Farewell, My Lovely' feature which fictional detective?
Answer: Philip Marlowe