#philip marlowe

[aloneandforsakenbyfateandbyman]

Raymond Chandler book covers by Tom Adams, 1972

[ufonaut]

Donald Westlake on Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels and inspirations behind his own Parker series, written under the Richard Stark pen name. Excerpt from The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany (2014), published posthumously.

[fistfightinganxietyandlosing]

All fictional detectives are on the spectrum. It's like a requirement at this point

[tilbageidanmark]

Bogie

[jawbonejoe]

Everyone wants to make Marlowe a tough guy when really he’s a guy who’s seen every Bugs Bunny cartoon ever because he sneaks into the movies for the air conditioning whenever he gets daydrunk and bloated.

[thezonestalker]

[charactersmashorpass-2]

"incredibly broke and slovenly private detective with a cat"

[astralbondpro]

The Big Sleep (1946) // Dir. Howard Hawks

[forthegothicheroine]

Raymond Chandler liked female villains. It never bothered me in any individual book, but when you look over his whole career, it does stand out. I don't know if I would call it misogyny or not, but it is what it is. With that in mind, the fact that the 1973 film of The Long Goodbye changed the resolution to the mystery is very interesting. Especially given that screenwriter Leigh Brackett ("the Queen of Space Opera") also worked on the Bogart film of The Big Sleep, which was also much kinder to the female characters than the book it was based on.

Spoilers below the cut.

In the book, Terry Lennox's wife was killed by Eileen Wade, and he fled the country because he knew he'd never be able to prove his innocence. Elliot Gould's Ambiguously Jewish Marlowe in the film assumes that's what happened- Terry's his friend, he's known him forever, such a fun guy! As it turns out, though, Eileen was guilty of nothing more than cheating on a man who was also cheating on her.

Terry really did kill his wife. It wasn't premeditated, he beat her to death during a fight. He makes a big joke of it when Marlowe finally tracks him down. Sorry to have caused all this trouble for you, but we're old friends, I figured you wouldn't mind too much! Gee, you're really sore at me? No one cares about that dead woman! Maybe you care, you're sentimental, but things don't tend to work out for you anyway.

Marlowe kills him.

[onenakedfarmer]

Watching

THE BIG SLEEP Howard Hawks USA, 1946

[mr-snailman]

merry late christmas guys

there’s some really fascinating analysis in here, it’s from a book called twentieth-century crime fiction: gender, sexuality and the body. heard about it on here and managed to track down a copy — gill plain puts into words a lot of what’s captivated me about the marlowe novels since I was a little kid.

[maybeitsalive]

As someone who never used that feature or never moderated anything in his life: would people be interested in a Philip Marlowe Tumblr community?

[theersatzcowboy]

The Long Goodbye (1973)

A deeply cynical neo-noir shot on the less-documented streets of 1970s Los Angeles.

Director: Robert Altman

Cinematographer: Vilmos Zsigmond

Starring: Elliott Gould, Sterling Hayden, Nina Van Pallandt, Jim Bouton, Mark Rydell, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[dirtyriver]

Various editions of the Chandler short stories collection Trouble is My Business.

The bibliography of Chandler (and Hammett) short stories collections is quite convoluted. Penguin UK was the first publisher to use that title for a collection in 1950 (top pic, Chandler's file copy via eBay). That collection contained five stories ("Trouble is My Business", "Red Wind", "I'll Be Waiting", "Guns at Cyrano's"). Other editions have a different line-up (no "Guns at Cyrano's", "Ill Be Waiting" replaced by "Finger Man").

When first published in Black Mask and Dime Detective in the 1930s, these stories featured Marlowe precursors John Dalmas and Carmady, but their names were changed to Chandler's most famous character.

This 1960s Penguin edition still used the name John Dalmas.

I love how Penguin used Bogart for their 1970s Chandler set, and switched to Mitchum for the 1985 reprint. Haven't been able to find a better pic, sorry.

The Folio Society also used that title for its two-volume set of Chandler's short stories, along with Blacklailers Don't Shot:

[watchmorecinema]

The Long Goodbye is a fantastic deconstruction of the noir film, and it helped me finally click into place what noir really is.

The hardboiled detective that is cynical as hell is only that way because he's the last man alive with any decency or humanity. The other people he interacts with during the case, or perhaps at all, don't follow any code. They lie, cheat, steal and do anything and everything to enrich themselves regardless of the cost of others. That's why he's so tired all the time: doing the right thing is exhausting if you know you're only going to be punished for it.

Philip Marlowe in this movie exemplifies that fully. He gives a friend a ride to Mexico, and the next day police are at his door asking questions. Do they simply respect his right to be silent? No, they assault him and imprison him until he talks (he never does, but they let him out anyways when they don't need his testimony anymore). Gangsters are after him for money he doesn't have and had no idea even existed. Everyone lies to him, abuses him or just uses him as a plaything.

What does he do in return? Stay honest and loyal at every turn. He helps his friends, he listens to people that beg him for help. At one point he notices a low level gang member is tailing him. His response is to give him advice on how to better stay hidden, and even tells him where he's going in case he gets lost on the way. He's messing with him, but he's also just straightforwardly helping a person that is actively trying to harm him.

The movie begins with Marlowe trying to feed his cat. His cat wants only one brand of cat food, and he doesn't have it. The store doesn't have it either, so he tries to put other food into an empty can and pretend it's the same. The cat scratches him for his deception and leaves. The cat has the same moral code as Marlowe, the difference being that cats are proud and Marlowe is a complete and utter loser. He's a cat in a world of vicious dogs, including multiple scenes where he is literally chased by a dog.

Most other noir films, especially before this one, doesn't have the hardboiled detective be quite so pathetic. That archetype was created for the 40's and 50's. This film takes Marlowe to the 70's, where he's a man out of time. The world has moved on without him, and his only response is to rage against this change. For Marlowe, that means trying to put on a happy face and uphold his own values no matter what anyone else thinks.

I really thought this was going to be a fun murder mystery (and it still is, the plot is fantastic here) but it's actually a great character study of not just Philip Marlowe but noir protagonists as a whole. Pretty amazing film.

[mmetacarpals]

the long goodbye really deals with marlowe's loner personality in a way the previous books have not, and, honestly, it's kind of harrowing. it feels like there has been this slow build up to the complete dissintergration of his tough guy persona, and the death of terry lennox really is weighing on him in a way that is more visible than other deaths in the series. It's so cruel to start this book with marlowe making his first friend in ages, just to take it away from him. this book just feels so lonely; it's genuinely upsetting