#philipmarlowe — Public Fediverse posts

Now watching:

'𝗠𝘂𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿, 𝗠𝘆 𝗦𝘄𝗲𝗲𝘁'

- directed by Edward Dmytryk
- written by John Paxton - Raymond Chandler (Novel)

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- with Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki....
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#murdermysweet - #edwarddmytryk - #nowwatching #firstwatch - #cinema #cinemastodon #film #filmastodon #movies #moviesmastodon - #letterboxd #trakt - #philipmarlowe #filmnoir #noir

Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories

If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.

A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.

I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:

During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.

Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.

It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.

Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:

Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.

Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.

Things were more complicated for secondary figures:

Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.

Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:

The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.

to these eighty-two:

The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.

After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.

As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.

*

An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.

The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:

To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.

The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.

In my new interview with writer Arvind Ethan David, he talks about how he and his art team have taken the iconic noir character Philip Marlowe somewhere new with "Raymond Chandler's Trouble Is My Business," a graphic novel adaptation of Chandler's 1950 novella.
https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-raymond-chandlers-trouble-is-my-business-writer-arvind-ethan-david/
📖🕵️🖌️
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
#Books #Reading #AuthorInterview #AuthorInterviews #BookTok #RaymondChandler #RaymondChandlerTroubleIsMyBusiness #GraphicNovel #ComicBook #Noir #MysteryNovel #PhilipMarlowe

In my new interview with writer Arvind Ethan David, he talks about how he and his art team have taken the iconic noir character Philip Marlowe somewhere new with "Raymond Chandler's Trouble Is My Business," a graphic novel adaptation of Chandler's 1950 novella.
https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-raymond-chandlers-trouble-is-my-business-writer-arvind-ethan-david/
📖🕵️🖌️
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
#Books #Reading #AuthorInterview #AuthorInterviews #BookTok #RaymondChandler #RaymondChandlerTroubleIsMyBusiness #GraphicNovel #ComicBook #Noir #MysteryNovel #PhilipMarlowe

Martha Vickers in 'The Big Sleep' (Howard Hawks, 1946)

#movies #cinema #marthavickers #actresses #hardboiled #raymondchandler #TheBigSleep #humpreybogart #cultmovies #Attrici #BeautifulActresses #thriller #PhilipMarlowe #detectivestories

Private Eye Day is the birthday of Raymond Chandler. Mr. Chandler, the creator of Philip Marlowe, was born this day in 1888. Here are 10 things you might not know about the character:

https://topicaltens.blogspot.com/2024/07/23-july-philip-marlowe.html

#PhilipMarlowe #Detectives #PrivateEyeDay

Private Eye Day is the birthday of Raymond Chandler. Mr. Chandler, the creator of Philip Marlowe, was born this day in 1888. Here are 10 things you might not know about the character:

https://topicaltens.blogspot.com/2024/07/23-july-philip-marlowe.html

#PhilipMarlowe #Detectives #PrivateEyeDay

Marlowe (1969), a surprisingly good adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister scripted by Stirling Silliphant, with James Garner making an effective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe encounters hippies and lots of late 60s California decadence.

My review: https://dfordoom-movieramblings.blogspot.com/2024/05/marlowe-1969.html

#60smovie #60smovies #1960smovie #1960smovies #cultmovie #classicmovie #classicmovies #privateeyes #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe #JamesGarner #neonoir #neonoirs #crimemovie #crimemovies #StirlingSilliphant

Marlowe (1969), a surprisingly good adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister scripted by Stirling Silliphant, with James Garner making an effective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe encounters hippies and lots of late 60s California decadence.

My review: https://dfordoom-movieramblings.blogspot.com/2024/05/marlowe-1969.html

#60smovie #60smovies #1960smovie #1960smovies #cultmovie #classicmovie #classicmovies #privateeyes #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe #JamesGarner #neonoir #neonoirs #crimemovie #crimemovies #StirlingSilliphant

I just finished reading The Long Goodbye and so of course I'm rewatching the Robert Altman movie. The plot of the movie is clearly inspired by the novel but its DRAMATICALLY different. Of course they're both good. The movie is one of my favorites, up there with The Big Lebowski and The Big Sleep. One thing I really have to call out is the absolutely superb acting by Sterling Hayden as the alcoholic writer Roger Wade. What a masterful performance. #philipmarlowe #raymondchandler #sterlinghayden

I just finished reading The Long Goodbye and so of course I'm rewatching the Robert Altman movie. The plot of the movie is clearly inspired by the novel but its DRAMATICALLY different. Of course they're both good. The movie is one of my favorites, up there with The Big Lebowski and The Big Sleep. One thing I really have to call out is the absolutely superb acting by Sterling Hayden as the alcoholic writer Roger Wade. What a masterful performance. #philipmarlowe #raymondchandler #sterlinghayden

The 1978 The Big Sleep with Mitchum is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. It has its problems but it's highly entertaining. Most people hate the 70s setting but Marlowe could quite plausibly have been still working as a PI in 1978.

My review: https://dfordoom-movieramblings.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-big-sleep-1978.html

#70smovie #70smovies #1970smovie #1970smovies#classicmovie #classicmovies #filmnoir #neonoir #RobertMitchum #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe #privateeyes #PImovies

The 1978 The Big Sleep with Mitchum is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. It has its problems but it's highly entertaining. Most people hate the 70s setting but Marlowe could quite plausibly have been still working as a PI in 1978.

My review: https://dfordoom-movieramblings.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-big-sleep-1978.html

#70smovie #70smovies #1970smovie #1970smovies#classicmovie #classicmovies #filmnoir #neonoir #RobertMitchum #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe #privateeyes #PImovies

Farewell, My Lovely (1975) gave Robert Mitchum at 57 his first chance to play Philip Marlowe. He does a superb job as an ageing worldweary Marlowe. Charlotte Rampling is great in female fatale mode. One of the great neo-noirs.

My review: https://dfordoom-movieramblings.blogspot.com/2023/09/farewell-my-lovely-1975.html

#70smovie #70smovies #1970smovie #1970smovies #classicmovie #classicmovies #filmnoir #neonoir #RobertMitchum #CharlotteRampling #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe #privateeyes #PImovies

Farewell, My Lovely (1975) gave Robert Mitchum at 57 his first chance to play Philip Marlowe. He does a superb job as an ageing worldweary Marlowe. Charlotte Rampling is great in female fatale mode. One of the great neo-noirs.

My review: https://dfordoom-movieramblings.blogspot.com/2023/09/farewell-my-lovely-1975.html

#70smovie #70smovies #1970smovie #1970smovies #classicmovie #classicmovies #filmnoir #neonoir #RobertMitchum #CharlotteRampling #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe #privateeyes #PImovies

Just finished The Long Goodbye was reminded that there was a movie. I watched the trailer, but it really was not the setting or mood I want out of that story.

Who's your Philip Marlowe in a old-school noir reboot?

#PhilipMarlowe #Noir #Reboot #Casting #TheLongGoodbye #Bogart

Just finished The Long Goodbye was reminded that there was a movie. I watched the trailer, but it really was not the setting or mood I want out of that story.

Who's your Philip Marlowe in a old-school noir reboot?

#PhilipMarlowe #Noir #Reboot #Casting #TheLongGoodbye #Bogart

I'm still doing some summer murder reading. Here's a line from The High Window that only Chandler could write: "From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away"

#RaymondChandler #WritersCommunity #Mysteries #Noir #PhilipMarlowe

I'm still doing some summer murder reading. Here's a line from The High Window that only Chandler could write: "From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away"

#RaymondChandler #WritersCommunity #Mysteries #Noir #PhilipMarlowe

"She... dressed like a union foreman waking up on his couch on a slow Sunday in Pasadena"

Denise Mina is clearly having fun channeling Chandler for her upcoming Philip Marlowe novel, The Second Murderer (coming from @harvillsecker mid-July)

#books #LunchtimeReading #AmReading #PhilipMarlowe #gumshoe #DeniseMina #TheSecondMurderer #CrimeFiction

"She... dressed like a union foreman waking up on his couch on a slow Sunday in Pasadena"

Denise Mina is clearly having fun channeling Chandler for her upcoming Philip Marlowe novel, The Second Murderer (coming from @harvillsecker mid-July)

#books #LunchtimeReading #AmReading #PhilipMarlowe #gumshoe #DeniseMina #TheSecondMurderer #CrimeFiction

"The Montgomery's money was so old there was a rumour that some of it still had Moses' teeth marks on it ..."

#LunchtimeReading : The Second Murderer, a new Philip Marlowe novel by Denise Mina, from @harvillsecker (out mid July)

#books #livres #CrimeFiction #AmReading #PhilipMarlowe #DeniseMina #DetectiveFiction #bookstodon

"The Montgomery's money was so old there was a rumour that some of it still had Moses' teeth marks on it ..."

#LunchtimeReading : The Second Murderer, a new Philip Marlowe novel by Denise Mina, from @harvillsecker (out mid July)

#books #livres #CrimeFiction #AmReading #PhilipMarlowe #DeniseMina #DetectiveFiction #bookstodon

Hmm, hadn't realised the screenplay for this 70s version of The Long Goodbye was by the legendary Leigh Brackett, who coincidentally had worked on the screenplay for the 1940s, Bogart-starring take on Chandler, The Big Sleep

#LeighBrackett #film #ClassicFilm #TheLongGoodbye #PhilipMarlowe #gumshoe #Noir #movie #ClassicFilm #ElliotGould #RaymondChandler #RobertAltman

Hmm, hadn't realised the screenplay for this 70s version of The Long Goodbye was by the legendary Leigh Brackett, who coincidentally had worked on the screenplay for the 1940s, Bogart-starring take on Chandler, The Big Sleep

#LeighBrackett #film #ClassicFilm #TheLongGoodbye #PhilipMarlowe #gumshoe #Noir #movie #ClassicFilm #ElliotGould #RaymondChandler #RobertAltman

"Is this the bit where I ask you why, and you say I ask the questions?"

Tonight's viewing: Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye. I'd totally forgotten about his cat demanding his fave food at the start

#film #cat #chat #ElliotGould #PhilipMarlowe #TheLongGoodbye #noir #gumshoe #ClassicFilm #ClassicMovie

"Is this the bit where I ask you why, and you say I ask the questions?"

Tonight's viewing: Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye. I'd totally forgotten about his cat demanding his fave food at the start

#film #cat #chat #ElliotGould #PhilipMarlowe #TheLongGoodbye #noir #gumshoe #ClassicFilm #ClassicMovie

"I don't like your manner," Kingsley said in a voice you could crack a Brazil nut on. "That's all right," I said. "I'm not selling it." - Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake

#PhilipMarlowe #RaymondChandler

Robert Mitchum impresses in Farewell, My Lovely (1975), one of his two outings as Philip Marlowe. Splendidly seedy, with gritty noir atmosphere and soundtrack - and a great turn by Charlotte Rampling. www.speckled.band

#noir #movies #chandler #films #raymondchandler #marlowe #PhilipMarlowe #mitchum #robertmitchum #filmnoir

Robert Mitchum impresses in Farewell, My Lovely (1975), one of his two outings as Philip Marlowe. Splendidly seedy, with gritty noir atmosphere and soundtrack - and a great turn by Charlotte Rampling. www.speckled.band

#noir #movies #chandler #films #raymondchandler #marlowe #PhilipMarlowe #mitchum #robertmitchum #filmnoir

#FilmNoirFriday #FilmNoir #NeoNoir #PhilipMarlowe #RaymondChandler #JamesGarner #BruceLee https://boxd.it/1tPEh3

Ohhh, looking forward to this, new addition to the eternally tottering TBR tower - the fabbity-fab Denise Mina is doing a Philip Marlowe novel this summer.

#books #PhilipMarlowe #CrimeFiction #TBR #ToBeRead #TBRPile #livre #DeniseMina #TheSecondMurderer #bookstodon

Ohhh, looking forward to this, new addition to the eternally tottering TBR tower - the fabbity-fab Denise Mina is doing a Philip Marlowe novel this summer.

#books #PhilipMarlowe #CrimeFiction #TBR #ToBeRead #TBRPile #livre #DeniseMina #TheSecondMurderer #bookstodon

Happy Annivers The Long Goodbye (G: Der Tod kennt keine Wiederkehr), which premiered 50 years ago on this day.

#FilmAnniversary #MovieAnniversary #movies #cinemastodon #film #cinema #filmastodon #FilmBubble #RobertAltman #ElliottGould #PhilipMarlowe #classicmovies #RaymondChandler

“Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.”

The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
#ClassicLitMonday 📖

Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe in Howard Hawks 1946 film noir 🎞️📽️

#TheBigSleep #ClassicLitMonday #literature #HumphreyBogart #HowardHawks #FilmNoir #PhilipMarlowe #book #books #BookQuote

“Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.”

The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
#ClassicLitMonday 📖

Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe in Howard Hawks 1946 film noir 🎞️📽️

#TheBigSleep #ClassicLitMonday #literature #HumphreyBogart #HowardHawks #FilmNoir #PhilipMarlowe #book #books #BookQuote

“He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat,”

- Much Ado About Nothing

#ShakespeareSunday theme ‘Clothing & Accessories’

#HumphreyBogart #PhilipMarlowe #FilmNoir

“He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat,”

- Much Ado About Nothing

#ShakespeareSunday theme ‘Clothing & Accessories’

#HumphreyBogart #PhilipMarlowe #FilmNoir

Liam Neeson as Philip Marlowe in Marlowe?!

Im pretty sure I will not like this.

Actually after thinking for a couple minutes, I start hating it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaZnsc5XfrA
#movies #cinemastodon #film #cinema #filmastodon #FilmBubble #philipmarlowe #humphreybogart #raymondchandler #filmoir

Liam Neeson is Philip Marlowe in the trailer for the new film from Neil Jordan. Watch it here http://bit.ly/3GTt9HQ

#Marlowe #LiamNeeson #NeilJordan #DianeKruger #JessicaLange #AlanCumming #DannyHuston #PhilipMarlowe #AdewaleAkinnuoyeAgbaje #IanHart #films #movies #detective #book

Striking that match on the cherub's butt is the best three seconds of Murder My Sweet (1944).
And it's not a bad movie.

#FilmNoir #TCMParty #ClassicMovies #DickPowell #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe
#Cinema

Striking that match on the cherub's butt is the best three seconds of Murder My Sweet (1944).
And it's not a bad movie.

#FilmNoir #TCMParty #ClassicMovies #DickPowell #RaymondChandler #PhilipMarlowe
#Cinema

This evening's viewing: the 1975 adaptation of Raymond Channdler's Farewell My Lovely, with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe, and also starring Charlotte Rampling.

#film #FilmNoir #FarewellMyLovely #ClassicFilm #RobertMitchum #CharlotteRampling #movie #PhilipMarlowe #gumshoe #RaymondChandler

My favourite Philip Marlowe adaptation is The Big Sleep, but my favourite actor to play Philip Marlowe is Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet. He looks like Marlowe and, more importantly, he captures the wisecracking, but contemplative detective better than any one else. And Murder, My Sweet is possibly the best Chandler adaptation short of The Big Sleep. #PhilipMarlowe #RaymondChandler #MurderMySweet #FilmNoir #Noirvember