Find any article that has appeared in Crime Factory.
 
   
   
 
Chandler on the Screen  
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 WEA 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 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 recognised 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.

I came away realising that it's very difficult to change the perceptions that even really intelligent people have tucked away in their minds. The overall convictions they held were two: (1) that Chandler was the creator of Philip Marlowe [Correct!] and (2) that Marlowe was featured in four or five novels [Actually seven or eight]. Full stop. Beyond The Big Sleep (1939), Lady in the Lake (1943), Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), and The Little Sister (1949) lay a complete blank. In fact, only a few of the really rabid fans knew The Little Sister. There was no recall at all of The Long Goodbye (1953) or Playback (1958), let alone the unfinished Poodle Springs completed by Robert B. Parker in 1989.

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, even though I admitted that Chandler was actually working in Hollywood at the time. (He was under contract to Paramount. Oddly, only two of the main studios held no screen rights to any Chandler novels. You guessed it! Paramount figured as one of the two).

I couldn't summon up courage to tell them that, using their definition of a Chandler movie, my favorite was The Brasher Doubloon. Instead we lapsed into a re-hash of how fascinating a movie The Big Sleep is and what wonderful dialogue had been handed to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in that legendary scene where the two stars slyly relate their preferences for slow horses and fast jockeys.

I blame a combination of bad television and good publicity for the perpetuation of these half-truths, which it's well-nigh impossible to shake. Tempting as it is to join the throng, 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 bowdlerised 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 Hitchcock'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 (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, plus two Pulitzer Prize awards), Jules Furthman (Academy Award nominee) and cult favorite Leigh Brackett (as well as Hawks himself) 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-inforced 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 and technicians. Mayer took his paternal duties very seriously, generally preferring to chastise and deflate his "children", rather than enourage and praise. But like all proud fathers, he had a few favorite sons (Arthur Freed, Albert Lewin, for example) whose whims he'd occasionally indulge. In 1946, Mayer was especially proud of Bob Montgomery, who'd returned to the studio with a chest full of medals after nearly five years of active service in the navy. Like many actors, Bob had an itch to direct. He didn't need second sight to realise 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 and give Bob a share of the profits! The canny Mayer's only stipulation was that the director/star produce a test reel to demonstrate that the many technical problems involved could be successfully licked.

An initial screenplay was already on hand. By arrangement with Paramount, Chandler himself had originally been engaged to adapt Lady in the Lake. Unhappy with the resulting 175-page screenplay ("Too long" and "too loosely organised"), M-G-M had turned to Steve Fisher, a highly experienced freelancer. Fisher tightened the story and gave it greater continuity. Then, of course, he had to re-work the whole script when Montgomery was assigned to direct.

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 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 is described as "a contemptible violation of everything Marlowe and Chandler stood for." On the other hand, I look at the movie as an original. I don't care if it's faithful to Chandler or not. 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 these stellar shortcomings.

Alfred Hitchcock induced Chandler to break his self-imposed exile from Hollywood for Strangers on a Train. Here we have another screen classic -- like Double Indemnity -- for which Chandler is not given due credit. Part of this lapse is due to Hitchcock 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 characterisation 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 MGM'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 characterised 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 dishevelled 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 revelled 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, but the re-make's demise became irremediably inevitable when Winner decided to re-locate the story from 1940s Los Angeles to 1970s London!

This failure of near-a-quarter-century ago marks the end of Raymond Chandler on the big screen. True, there have been TV movies such as Blackmailers Don't Shoot (1989) and Poodle Springs (1998); but perhaps it's time -- more than time -- for a Chandler movie revival. How about Mel Gibson as Chandler? or Russell Crowe? And what about Playback, the seventh and final completed Chandler/Marlowe, which has never been filmed?

 
Crime Factory Home