GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #46

PHILIP MARLOWE

Created by Raymond Chandler, Marlowe has come to epitomize the private eye in detective fiction.  More thoughtful than his brethren, who rely on guns and fists, he has a college education and can quote Browning, Eliot, and Flaubert.  He relaxes by solving chess problems and enjoys classical art and symphonies.  Marlowe clearly has not chosen his occupation for the money, as his one-man detective agency is only marginally successful.  He will not knowingly accept a client who is dishonest.  When he discovers that a $5000 check he has received as a fee represents "tainted money", he places it in his office safe - uncashed.  Trouble, as Marlowe has said, is his business, but it is a business chosen out of a desire to restore some decency to the world about him.

Unswervingly loyal to those clients he will serve, Marlowe accepts arrest rather than betray their interests.  In "The Lady in the Lake" and "The Long Goodbye" he is brutally beaten by corrupt policemen but stoically answers their punishment with flippant remarks.  He is a good detective, his introspective qualities serving him equally well in his work and in his chess games.  His milieu, Los Angeles, is a city he knows intimately, from the mansions of Beverly Hills to the changing areas of Central Avenue and downtown Bunker Hill.  He speaks Spanish, a distinct asset in some parts of the city.

A man of about 40, Marlowe has been described as tall, with gray eyes, a thin nose, and a jaw of stone.  A lonely, though not ascetic man, Marlowe falls in love late in his literary life with a 36-year old millionairess, Linda Loring, whom he meets in "The Long Goodbye".  Their marriage is described at the beginning of the novel "Poodle Springs" which was unfinished at the time of Raymond Chandler's death.  Marlowe refuses to stay permanently at Linda's Palm Springs estate.  Nor will he accept her offer to set him up in business or give him a million dollars.  He prefers to remain a private detective, saying, "I'm a poor man married to a rich wife.  I don't know how to behave.  I'm only sure of one thing - shabby office or not, that's where I became what I am.  That's where I will be what I will be...For me there isn't any other way."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1939 "The Big Sleep"/  1940 "Farewell, My Lovely"/  1942 "The High Window"/  1943 "The Lady in the Lake"/  1949 "The Little Sister" (Cosmopolitan April 1949)/  1950 "The Simple Art of Murder" (s.s.)/  1953 "The Long Goodbye"/  1958 "Playback" (Suspense Oct.-Nov. 1958 - based on an unproduced screenplay from 1947)/  1964 "Killer in the Rain" (s.s.)/  1965 "The Smell of Fear" (s.s.)/  1972 "Trouble Is My Business" (s.s.)/  1972 "Pickup on Noon Street" (s.s.)/  1989 "Poodle Springs" (was completed posthumously by Robert B. Parker).

SHORT STORIES

The only true short story that Chandler wrote with Philip Marlowe was "The Pencil" (1959), but in the 1950 collection "The Simple Art of Murder" the reprinted stories changed the names of the various detectives to Marlowe, just for that volume.  In the 20 stories that Chandler wrote before his first novel he was evolving the character of his famous detective, Philip Marlowe.  At times the detective was anonymous, at other times he was called Carmody, Dalmas, Malvern, and Mallory.  With each story he came closer to Chandler's conception of the fictional detective.  And almost all of the stories have been filmed as Marlowe adventures on TV, so I've included them all here.

"Blackmailers Don't Shoot" (Black Mask Dec. 1933)/  "Smart-Aleck Kill" (Black Mask July 1934)/  "Finger Man" (Black Mask Oct. 1934)/  "Killer in the Rain" (Black Mask Jan. 1935)/  "Nevada Gas" (Black Mask June 1935)/  "Spanish Blood" (Black Mask Nov. 1935)/  "Guns at Cyrano's" (Black Mask Jan. 1936)/  "The Man Who Liked Dogs" (Black Mask Mar. 1936)/  "Pickup on Noon Street" (Detective Fiction Weekly May 30, 1936)/  "Goldfish" (Black Mask June 1936)/  "The Curtain" (Black Mask Sept. 1936)/  "Try the Girl" (Black Mask Jan. 1937)/  "Mandarin's Jade" (Dime Detective Nov. 1937)/  "Red Wind" (Dime Detective Ja. 1938)/  "The King in Yellow" (Dime Detective Mar. 1938)/  "Bay City Blues" (Dime Detective June 1938)/  "The Lady in the Lake" (Dime Detective Jan. 1939)/  "Pearls Are a Nuisance" (Dime Detective Apr. 1939)/  "Trouble Is My Business" (Dime Detective Aug. 1939)/  "I'll Be Waiting" (Saturday Evening Post Oct. 14, 1939)/  "No Crime in the Mountains" (Detective Story Sept. 1941)/  "The Pencil" (London Daily Mail Apr. 6, 1959).

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was born in Chicago and taken by his mother as a young boy to live in England.  He received a classical education at Dulwich College, London, then taught and was a freelance journalist for The Spectator and the Westminster Gazette before returning to the United States.  During WWI he went to Canada and joined the Gordon Highlanders, serving in France where he was awarded two medals.  Returning to the States he settled in Los Angeles where he was briefly a reporter for the Daily Express before becoming a successful executive with various oil companies.  The Depression caused a temporary collapse in the oil industry and Chandler became insolvent.  He began writing for the pulp magazines, which he had read as relaxation, and sold his first story in 1933.

He married Pearl Cecily Bowen in 1924, a woman 17 years older than himself.  During his wife's lengthy illness that culminated in her death in December 1954, Chandler devoted himself almost exclusively to her, neglecting his career.  Chandler's own health deteriorated after his wife's death and he wrote little, drinking heavily until his own death five years later.  His only book of this period, "Playback", is regarded as inferior to the rest of his works.  Chandler did not achieve fame and popularity until the publication of his first novel "The Big Sleep".  As a writer for the pulps he was highly rated, but his output did not noticeably differ in either quantity or quality from that of a dozen others.  His writing skills became more apparent with his first novel, and he was consistently praised, especially for his rendering of the sights and sounds of Los Angeles.  Chandler's works were held in high esteem in England.  W. H. Auden regarded them as "works of art" rather than escape literature.  Chandler was surprised to find, while on a trip to England, that "over here I am not regarded as a mystery writer but as an American novelist of some importance."

In his often-reprinted, self-revelatory essay "The Simple Art of Murder" (Atlantic Monthly Dec. 1944), Chandler saw the detective as a modern knight "in search of a hidden truth".  In describing his knight's journey and character he wrote, "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.  The detective in this kind of story must be such a man.  He is the hero, he is everything.  He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.  He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor...He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all.  He is a common man or he could not go among common people.  He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job.  He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge.  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."

In Chandler's seven novels, Marlowe remains consistent with this image, resisting the corrupting influences around him.  His clients are wealthy but money has not bought them happiness.  They are vulnerable to blackmail.  They surround themselves with the trappings of wealth, which invite theft.  And their marriages are invariably unhappy, resulting in unfaithfulness.

Increasingly, Chandler became disenchanted with Los Angeles, the city he had once loved.  In 1946 he moved to La Jolla.  In "The Little Sister" he has Marlowe say in an oft-quoted soliloquy, "I used to like this town.  A long time ago...Los Angeles was just a big dry sunny place with ugly homes and no style, but good-hearted and peaceful...(Now) we've got the big money, the sharp-shooters, the percentage workers, the fast-dollar boys, the hoodlums out of New York and Chicago and Detroit...the riff-raff of a big hardboiled city with no more personality than a paper cup."  Part of Chandler's growing hatred of L.A. stemmed from his frustrating, albeit successful, career as a screenwriter.  He received Academy Award nominations for "Double Indemnity" (1944- the best film noir ever made) and "The Blue Dahlia" (1946).  However, he was constantly at odds with Hollywood studio executives over their demands for changes in his material.  In 1949, when Chandler was the "hottest" mystery name in the U.S., he was guaranteed a sum of money if he would merely lend his name to a proposed Raymond Chandler's Mystery Magazine.  He refused because he would have no control over the editorial policy.

He attempted suicide in 1955, more of a cry for help since he alerted the police before he made an attempt.  After a respite in London he returned to La Jolla where he died at Scripps Memorial Hospital of pneumonia.  He is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego.  His gravestone carries an inscription from "The Big Sleep" - "Dead men are heavier than broken hearts."

FILMS

At first, Chandler's detective contributed his cases to the films of others.  In 1942 "Farewell, My Lovely" was shortened and became a vehicle for The Falcon in "The Falcon Takes Over".  That year, too, the search for a rare coin in the novel "The High Window" became the basis of a Michael Shayne mystery "Time to Kill".  Two years later, Dick Powell, anxious to shed his musical comedy image, was the first to portray the moody, introspective Marlowe.

"Murder, My Sweet" RKO, 1944.  Dick Powell (Marlowe), Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Mike Mazurki, Miles Mander, Otto Kruger.  Director: Edward Dmytryk.  Based on "Farewell, My Lovely".  A convict fresh out of prison hires Marlowe to locate his long-lost girlfriend Velma.  The case leads to a wealthy, turbulent family, a sinister psychiatrist, a jewel robbery, and murder.  The film won the the first Edgar award given by the Mystery Writers of America for best mystery film of the year.

"The Big Sleep" WB, 1946.  Humphrey Bogart (Marlowe), Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers, Louis Jean Heydt, Elisha Cook, Jr.  Director: Howard Hawks.  An elderly millionaire calls Marlowe to his steamy hothouse and hires him to free his mentally unbalanced, drug-addicted daughter (Vickers) from the clutches of a dealer in pornographic books.  The dealer is murdered.  Another daughter (Bacall), heavily in debt to gamblers, tries to protect her sister by ending Marlowe's investigation.  A rich, complex plot, full of outre characters and an exhilarating screen experience.

"Lady in the Lake" MGM, 1946.  Robert Montgomery (Marlowe), Audrey Totter, Leon Ames, Lloyd Nolan.  Director: Montgomery.  The camera itself plays Marlowe as director Montgomery tells his story in a subjective narrative - the camera is the detective's (and the viewer's) eyes, and the audience sees Marlowe only when his face is reflected in a mirror.  Marlowe is hired to locate the missing wife of a publisher and finds a woman's body at the bottom of a mountain lake.

"The Brasher Doubloon" 20th Century Fox, 1947.  George Montgomery (Marlowe), Nancy Guild, Florence Bates, Fritz Kortner.  Director: John Brahm.  Based on "The High Window".  A tougher Marlowe discovers a missing rare coin that leads him to two murders, and to the shadowy past of a frightened, insecure girl who is certain that, some years earlier, she pushed a man from the window of a high building.

"Marlowe" MGM, 1969.  James Garner (Marlowe), Gayle Hunnicut, Rita Moreno, Carroll O'Connor, Bruce Lee.  Director: Paul Bogart.  Based on "The Little Sister".  In this rather bright adaptation, Marlowe is drawn into the family troubles of a blackmailed movie starlet whose younger sister has traveled from the Ozarks to cause mischief and murder.

"The Long Goodbye" United Artists, 1973.  Elliott Gould (Marlowe), Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell.  Director: Robert Altman.  A seedy, bemused, and uncertain Marlowe of the 1970s wonders what drove his best friend - who may or may not have killed his wife - to Mexico and suicide.

"Farewell, My Lovely" Avco Embassy, 1975.  Robert Mitchum (Marlowe), Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Anthony Zerbe.  Director: Dick Richards.  A faithful adaptation of the novel, set in 1940s Los Angeles.

"The Big Sleep" United Artists, 1978.  Mitchum (Marlowe), Sarah Miles, Richard Boone, Candy Clark, Joan Collins, Edward Fox, James Stewart.  Director: Michael Winner.  The setting is changed to 1970s London.  The actors sleepwalk through their roles.  Everything about this movie looks and feels wrong.

RADIO

Lux Radio Theater "Murder, My Sweet" CBS, June 11, 1945.  Dick Powell reprises his role as Philip Marlowe.

"The New Adventures of Philip Marlowe" NBC, June 17 - September 9, 1947.  Van Heflin as Philip Marlowe in this summer replacement series for Bob Hope.  The first episode adapted Chandler's story "Red Wind".  They also adapted Chandler's "The King in Yellow" and "Trouble Is My Business".  

Lux Radio Theater "Lady in the Lake" CBS, February 9, 1948.  Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter.

Hollywood Star Time "Murder, My Sweet" CBS, June 8, 1948.  Dick Powell.

"The Adventures of Philip Marlowe" CBS, September 26, 1948 to September 15, 1951.  Gerald Mohr portrayed Marlowe in 114 episodes.  The first episode was, like the earlier NBC series, based on the story "Red Wind".  By 1949 the series was pulling the biggest audience on radio with 10.3 million listeners.  In 1950 Mohr was named the Best Male Actor on radio.

TELEVISION

Robert Montgomery Presents "The Big Sleep" NBC, September 25, 1950.  Zachary Scott as Philip Marlowe.

Climax! "The Long Goodbye" CBS, October 7, 1954.  Dick Powell as Marlowe.

"Philip Marlowe" an ABC series with Philip Carey as Marlowe in 26 episodes that ran October 6, 1959 until March 29, 1960.

"Philip Marlowe, Private Eye" HBO, April 16 - May 14, 1983, and April 27 - June 3, 1986.  Powers Boothe as Philip Marlowe.  The stories were set in 1930s Los Angeles and were adaptations of Chandler's stories: "The Pencil", "The King in Yellow", "Finger Man", "Nevada Gas", "Smart-Aleck Kill", "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", "Spanish Blood", Pickup on Noon Street", "Guns at Cyrano's", "Trouble Is My Business" and "Red Wind".

Fallen Angels "Red Wind" Showtime, November 26, 1995.  Danny Glover as Marlowe, with Kelly Lynch and Dan Hedaya.

"Poodle Springs" HBO, July 25, 1998.  James Caan as Marlowe with Dina Meyer, David Keith, and Joe Don Baker.

"Marlowe" 2007 TV pilot by Touchstone with Jason O'Mara as Marlowe.  The proposed series never materialized.

STAGE

"The Little Sister" was performed in 1978 at the Organic Theatre in Chicago with Mike Genovese as Marlowe.