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RAYMOND CHANDLER FILMS AND SCREENPLAYS

Success was both the making and the ruin of Raymond Chandler. His first novel The Big Sleep (1939) achieved the sort of popular acclaim and critical hat-tossing that all writers dream about. Before that he'd written twenty novelettes for "Black Mask" and other pulp magazines with nothing but small change in his pocket to show for all that effort. After Big Sleep, he could write his own ticket. He followed quickly with Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), and The Lady in the Lake (1943). Then a hiatus until The Little Sister (1949), The Long Goodbye (1953), and Playback (1958).

I was recently invited to participate in a Mystery Lovers' symposium, entitled "An Evening with the Great Detectives". Previous speakers had detailed the deductive powers of Hercule Poirot, the unfailing courtesies of Charlie Chan, the courtroom tactics of Perry Mason, and the antisocial vices of Sherlock Holmes. Between Poirot and Holmes, they'd managed to steal all my thunder. By the time the chairman turned to me, eliciting my thoughts on Philip Marlowe, I had little left to say. Desperately, I addressed the audience, inviting them to compile a list of Raymond Chandler's novels and movies and choose their favorites.

Surprise! Surprise! The Big Sleep easily topped both novel and movie lists, with Lady in the Lake, a distant second as favorite novel. Inadvertently, I caused considerable confusion by citing Double Indemnity as a Chandler movie. Which it is. Chandler was actually nominated (along with co-writer Billy Wilder) for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. But few people in the audience of sixty or seventy fans knew anything at all about Chandler's separate movie career, even though most of them could reel off the titles of at least four Marlowe novels. None recognized The Blue Dahlia (1946) as a Chandler movie either, even though this one was an original, and, once again, Chandler had been nominated for an Academy Award.

To just about everyone present, a Chandler movie was purely and simply a film version of a Chandler novel. Most were surprised by my insistence that (with one exception only) Chandler had nothing to do with their screenplays.

So here for the record is a quick overview of Chandler -- all of Chandler -- on the screen.

To date, there are sixteen big-screen movies, either based on a Chandler novel or screenplayed by Chandler.

First off is The Falcon Takes Over (1942), which hardly marks an auspicious beginning for Chandler or Marlowe on the screen. RKO purchased the screen rights to Farewell, My Lovely for a song and had no qualms in making it over for Michael Arlen's character, The Falcon, who figured in a series of sixteen "B" movies, starring George Sanders (the first four), John Calvert (the last three), and Sanders' real-life brother, Tom Conway (the ones in between). By the humble standards of the series "B", however, The Falcon Takes Over is reasonably entertaining. Chandler's tense plot is preserved more or less intact. Only the characters have been changed. Sanders makes The Falcon suitably suave, whilst Lynn Bari provides a spirited heroine.

The second Chandler movie, A Time to Kill, augmented the odd trend of the first. This time, The High Window was the novel, Michael Shayne the series character usurping Marlowe, Lloyd Nolan the star, 20th Century-Fox the studio. Unfortunately, the Shayne series was running out of both puff and money at this stage. Not only was it lensed quickly and on the cheap, but the script bowdlerized the novel, retaining just the bare bones of the plot whilst eliminating all its wit, sophistication, atmosphere and tension.

Reversing the trend, on the third occasion Chandler's name hit the screen, the movie, Double Indemnity (1944), was based on a James M. Cain novel. Chandler collaborated with director Billy Wilder on the script of a film that has since become a cult classic, thanks to the strength of its stars -- Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray (of all people) as the heavies, Edward G. Robinson as the hero -- as well as its bizarre murder plot and steamy situations.

Chandler then worked on a most unlikely vehicle, a Rachel Field weepie, And Now Tomorrow (1944), in which a dedicated but impoverished young doctor (played with an air of complete bewilderment by super-tough-guy Alan Ladd, here numbingly miscast) falls in love with a rich but deaf socialite (Loretta Young).

Finally, late in 1944, when Chandler's popularity and critical esteem were at their height, RKO seized the opportunity to dust off the song-bought Farewell, My Lovely and film it straight. They couldn't resist changing the title to Murder, My Sweet, but otherwise this is pretty well as authentic as Chandler ever got on the screen. Marlowe was sensationally played by Dick Powell who, sick to death of his namby-pamby screen image as a lightweight crooner, talked the studio into re-inventing him as the tough, resilient, cynical private eye -- a role that he was to play with minor variations and only one or two exceptions for the rest of his acting career. Powerfully directed by Edward Dmytryk, the movie not only won the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year, but took millions at the box-office. Twelve years later, Chandler declared that Powell deserved recognition as the nearest cinematic equivalent of Marlowe and that Murder, My Sweet was the best screen adaptation of any of his novels.

In the meantime, however, Chandler still hadn't found his "write" niche at his home studio, Paramount. True, his next assignment, The Unseen (1945), seemed ideal -- at least on paper. Based on a book by Ethel Lina White (who wrote the original novels for both Hitch****'s Lady Vanishes and Siodmak's Spiral Staircase), the movie somehow ended up as more of a lightweight ghost story than mystery-suspense. Spooks were not Chandler's forte, but he was brought into the picture to give the supernatural proceedings a bit of rationality. He did his best, but complained to all who'd listen that it was time the studio used his talents in the right direction.

Finally, the contractee's voice was heard by studio management. Given the go-ahead for an original suspense thriller, Chandler set to work on The Blue Dahlia (1946). In many ways vintage Chandler, with lots of atmospheric touches, cynical dialogue, a fabulous femme fatale (Doris Dowling) and an embittered hero (played with an appropriate lack of emotion by Alan Ladd), the completed script hit an unexpected snag. The Navy Department complained to the studio that portraying neurotic veterans as potential killers violated the senior service's no-no code. A compromise was reached, forcing Chandler to re-work the ending of the movie. That he did so under protest is evident by the slip-shod, utterly unconvincing way he "remedied" the situation. In fact, when he revised his last word on Blue Dahlia, he tore up his contract, vowing never to work in Hollywood again.

If Chandler's reputation was dented by The Blue Dahlia, it was certainly retrieved by the release of Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep in September 1946. Luminaries like William Faulkner, Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett worked on the script which added to the flavor and color of the novel without detracting or undermining its sleazy characters, sharp dialogue, seedy atmosphere and confused plot. In public estimation, it remains the most popular and quintessential Chandler novel on the screen, -- an impression re-enforced by the belated release of an earlier Hawks version which sticks closer to Chandler but doesn't have the same Bogart-Bacall chemistry.

The next Chandler movie proved to be not only the most controversial of all adaptations, but one of the weirdest films ever produced by a major Hollywood studio, -- in this case Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the home of dripping-with-glamour, ultra-escapist, strictly non-controversial and solidly conventional entertainment. It all came about because Louis B. Mayer, the titular head of the studio, regarded himself as the "father" of M-G-M's vast family of artists. In 1946, Mayer was especially proud of war hero, Bob Montgomery. Like many actors, Bob had an itch to direct. He didn't need second sight to realize this was exactly the right time to tell Mayer what he wanted. "Granted," said Mayer, without any argument.

Montgomery then explained that it wasn't any ordinary old film he wanted to direct. It was Lady in the Lake, a property that the studio had already purchased and indeed readied for the screen. He detailed to Mayer his revolutionary idea in which the camera itself would substitute for the leading actor. Every last bit of the movie would literally be seen through Marlowe's eyes -- and Marlowe, though voiced by Montgomery, would be played by the camera.

To everyone's amazement (including Bob's), Mayer, the king of Hollywood conservatives, not only gave this extraordinary project the go-ahead, but agreed to finance the movie on a top "A" budget.

As expected, director Montgomery cast himself as Marlowe (we hear his voice, but only actually see him a couple of times -- as a reflection in a mirror).

When Chandler heard what M-G-M were doing with his Lady, he phoned the producer telling him quite bluntly that not only did he think Montgomery's subjective camera idea "old stuff", but that it was a gimmicky novelty that wouldn't work in any sort of feature film, let alone his Lady in the Lake.

Despite Chandler's reaction (it's reported that he "loathed" the finished picture. Certainly he spurned M-G-M's offer to include his name on the screenplay credit), the movie garnered some highly enthusiastic reviews and earned back its million-dollar negative cost on its initial North American release. It also established a cult reputation which has served it well. Of all the Chandler/Marlowe movie adaptations, only The Big Sleep is held in higher regard today.

By contrast, my favorite Chandler novel-turned-movie, The Brasher Doubloon (1947), has no present-day reputation at all. A now unfashionable leading man, George Montgomery, is regarded (with some justification) as "the worst Marlowe on the screen", whilst the movie itself is described as "a contemptible violation of everything Marlowe and Chandler stood for."My personal opinion of The High Window rates it as the least interesting of all Chandler's finished novels. Whilst its style and dialogue often exhibit that prized Chandler gloss, the support characters are mostly dreary as hell and the plot downright stupid. Stuck with inferior material like this, director John Brahm has spun absolute wonders. The opening windy-day-in-Pasadena sequence is often cited in film noir text books as a perfect example of atmospheric movie-making. It's a shame Brahm's dynamic direction is often vitiated by George Montgomery's lecherous lead, but the rest of the cast, led by the intriguing Nancy Guild, aberrant Fritz Kortner and treacherous Florence Bates (the most powerful performance of her career) more than make up for Montgomery's shortcomings.

Alfred Hitch**** induced Chandler to break his self-imposed exile from Hollywood for Strangers on a Train (1951). Here we have another screen classic -- like Double Indemnity -- for which Chandler is not given due credit. Part of this lapse is due to Hitch**** himself who, in later interviews, constantly derided Chandler's contribution. "The work he did was no good," Hitch complained to many a celebrated critic. But good old Hitch had used it anyway. Adapted from a Patricia Highsmith story, the Chandler hand is evident not only in the inward-twisting plot and contrastingly classy and gaudy atmosphere, but in the tensely nervy and often cynical dialogue, -- and even more particularly in the characterization of the festeringly bizarre but remarkably personable psychopath so brilliantly played by Robert Walker.

Twenty-two years after Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister braved M-G-M's lion logo in Paul Bogart's dejectedly directed Marlowe (1969). Wooden-faced James Garner enacted a thoroughly flat and uninteresting Marlowe in what jerkily emerged on the screen as a tediously spun out, weakly plotted, ineptly characterized and ultimately boring experience.

Robert Altman's film version of The Long Goodbye (1973) also offered little succor to Chandler devotees. Far from the comparatively suave heights of Powell and Bogart (where Marlowe's suit may be a bit rumpled, his face occasionally unshaven), the habitually disheveled Eliott Gould, stunningly miscast as a bumbling, mumbling derelict slob of a Marlowe, was joined by a colorless model-turned-Barbie doll, Nina Van Pallandt, and a supposedly enticing former film hero, Sterling Hayden, -- marking his screen return in a character role in which he stubbornly and loquaciously out-stayed his original welcome.

By contrast the 1975 Farewell, My Lovely had both critics and fans rejoicing. The direction reveled in atmospheric ambiance, whilst the acting from stars to bit-players pegged close to perfection. Robert Mitchum made a surprisingly persuasive fist of a sardonic, world-weary Marlowe a-drift in realistically tawdry 1940's art deco sets. Mitchum proved so believably charismatic in the part, director Michael Winner signed him to reprise his impersonation in a re-make of The Big Sleep (1978). A costly project with lots of star power, this one was doomed to failure from the start. Critics were honor-bound to compare any new version unfavorably with the original.

This failure of near-a-quarter-century ago marks the end of Raymond Chandler on the big screen. True, there have been TV movies but perhaps it's time--more than time--for a Chandler big-screen revival. You can view the ranking of Chandler's films in my list of the 400 Best Movies of All Time at http://www.filmclassics.info

About the Author

John Howard Reid has been a professional film critic for over fifty years. His work has been published in the USA/Canada, in England/Europe, and in Australia/South Africa. Eighteen books of his film history and movie reviews are currently in print in both American and British editions.