‘I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.’ Philip Marlowe had it lucky: I haven’t even got a hat.
This month, Radio Four will air four plays of Raymond Chandler’s novels. Adapted by script writers Stephen Wyatt and Robin Brooks and starring Toby Stephens as Chandler’s infamous detective, the Classic Chandler season begins at 2:30 this Saturday with The Big Sleep. Make it your business to listen.
Somewhere between the fish course and the appreciation of Islamophobia, dinner party guests discuss how Chandler revolutionised the detective novel. I disagree. Chandler did not revolutionise Private Dick Fiction: the plots of The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely are no more hardboiled than Dorothy L. Sayers’ more macabre efforts (Strong Poison comes to mind), although Chandler’s moral conclusions are much more ambiguous.
Chandler owes his longevity to the originality of his style, and to his dialogue in particular. Flicking through my foxed copy of Farewell, My Lovely, his prose remains unnerving and incisive. It jolts me in my easy chair; no wonder Chandler and Film Noir married. Here a few choice lines grabbed at random:
‘It was one of those transient motels, something between a fleabag and a dive.’
‘My, my, my! Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains! You know, you’re the second guy I’ve met today that seems to think a gat in the hand means the world by the tail.’
‘She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.’
And from The Big Sleep:
‘Eddie Mars: I could make your business mine.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, you wouldn’t like it. The pay’s too small.’
No author could do that at the time and, with the exception of James Ellroy and a very exciting first time novelist called Luke Williams, few can now. Chandler was revered by Evelyn Waugh as a
stylist, which is no mean feat. For most of his life, Waugh was renowned as a stylistic innovator – breaking conventions by incorporating the bald staccato of telephone conversations into
vast sections of Vile Bodies. But, next to Chandler, he looks old hat. That is Chandler’s revolution.
PS: I heard an excerpt of Toby Stephens performing on the radio this morning. His accent held and his delivery was clear; and, as the son of Robert Stephens, he has a captivating voice. I think he’ll be good. So, as a little bit of fun for elevenses, who is the definitive screen Marlowe? I’m not original and will therefore nominate Dick Powell.
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