Creatures of Darkness : Raymond Chandler, Detective Fiction, and Film Noir

more Than Any Other Writer, Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) Is Responsible For Raising Detective Stories From The Level Of Pulp Fiction To Literature. Chandler's Hard-boiled Private Eye Philip Marlowe Set The Standard For Rough, Brooding Heroes Who Managed To Maintain A Strong Sense Of Moral Conviction Despite A Cruel And Indifferent World. Chandler's Seven Novels, Including The Big Sleep (1939) And The Long Goodbye (1953), With Their Pessimism And Grim Realism, Had A Direct Influence On The Emergence Of Film Noir. Chandler Worked To Give His Crime Novels The Flavor Of His Adopted City, Los Angeles, Which Was Still Something Of A Frontier Town, Rife With Corruption And Lawlessness. In Addition To Novels, Chandler Wrote Short Stories And Penned The Screenplays For Several Films, Including Double Indemnity (1944) And Strangers On A Train (1951). His Work With Billy Wilder And Alfred Hitchcock On These Projects Was Fraught With The Difficulties Of Collaboration Between Established Directors And An Author Who Disliked Having To Edit His Writing On Demand. Creatures Of Darkness Is The First Major Biocritical Study Of Chandler In Twenty Years. Gene Phillips Explores Chandler's Unpublished Script For Lady In The Lake, Examines The Process Of Adaptation Of The Novel Strangers On A Train, Discusses The Merits Of The Unproduced Screenplay For Playback, And Compares Howard Hawks's Director's Cut Of The Big Sleep With The Version Shown In Theaters. Through Interviews He Conducted With Wilder, Hitchcock, Hawks, And Edward Dmytryk Over The Past Several Decades, Phillips Provides Deeper Insight Into Chandler's Sometimes Difficult Personality. Chandler's Wisecracking Marlowe Has Spawned A Thousand Imitations. Creatures Of Darkness Lucidly Explains The Author's Dramatic Impact On Both The Literary And Cinematic Worlds, Demonstrating The Immeasurable Debt That Both Detective Fiction And The Neo-noir Films Of Today Owe To Chandler's Stark Vision. kirkus Reviews welcome To The Dark World Of Raymond Chandler, Film Noir, And Scholarship, Where Behind Every Corner Lurks A Plot Synopsis Blocking The Organic Growth Of Analysis. Title 2 Copyright 3 Contents 8 Preface: Billy Wilder Speaking 12 Acknowledgments 16 Chronology 18 Prologue: Trouble in Paradise 20 1 Introduction: Dead of Night 26 Part One: Knight and the City: The Films of Chandler's Fiction 36 2 Paint It Black: Chandler as Fiction Writer 38 3 The Lady Is a Tramp: The Falcon Takes Over; Murder, My Sweet; and Farewell, My Lovely 45 4 Knight Moves: Two Films of The Big Sleep 73 5 Down among the Rotting Palms: Time to Kill and The Brasher Doubloon 98 6 Dead in the Water: Lady in the Lake 119 7 Decline and Fall: Marlowe 142 8 Modern Times: The Long Goodbye 178 Part Two: Exiled in Babylon: Chandler's Screenplays 204 9 Lured: Double Indemnity 206 10 No Way to Treat a Lady: The Blue Dahlia and Other Screenplays 224 11 Dance with the Devil: Strangers on a Train and Playback 243 12 The Stag at Eve: Poodle Springs and Other Telefilms 264 Epilogue: Endless Night 283 Notes 292 Selected Bibliography 316 Filmography 324 Index 338 A 338 B 338 C 339 D 341 E 342 F 342 G 343 H 343 I 345 J 345 K 345 L 345 M 346 N 347 O 348 P 348 Q 349 R 349 S 350 T 351 U 352 V 352 W 352 Y 352 Z 352 Phillips explores the intersection of Chandler's fiction and film, from his novels and short stories to his Hollywood screenplays. He probes Chandler's difficult personality and demonstrates the debt that both detective fiction and today's neo-noir films owe the Chandler's stark vision This study of Raymond Chandler explores one of Chandler's unpublished scripts, examines the differences between the American and British film versions of "Strangers on a Train", and compares Howard Hawks's director's cut of "The Big Sleep" with the one shown in theaters. Photos Raymond Chandler once observed that American writers of hard-boiled detective stories like himself had taken murder out of "the vicar's rose garden" and dropped it in the alley. The literary vision of Raymond Chandler comes into sharp focus in this analysis of the books and films that introduced noir to the American consciousness.