As one of the Four Horsemen of the Noir Apocalypse (the others being Dashiell Hammett, James Cain, and Cornell Woolrich), Raymond Chandler has a unique place in our history—in books and on film.
Chandler invented Philip Marlowe, after all. He wrote about the mean streets of Los Angeles years before Dragnet. His novels were developed into quintessential noir movies of the 1940s such as The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely.
Among the actors to play Marlowe, the private eye, are Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, George Montgomery, James Garner, Elliott Gould, Robert Mitchum, and, most recently, Liam Neeson.
Born in Chicago but raised in England before moving back to the United States in his 20s, Chandler used perspective in his writing, said Tom Williams, author of A Mysterious Something in the Light: The Life of Raymond Chandler.
Chandler was the proverbial outsider from the start after his mother placed him in a fancy British prep school, Williams said. He remained somewhat out of step after his return to the States, said Williams, noting that “Chandler’s reasonably easy to see but hard to grasp.”
If you listen to Chandler’s voice on some of the interviews that exist, you find his accent is neither British nor American, Williams said.
Chandler found his footing in Los Angeles, however, when, in his 40s, he turned to writing detective fiction. Fascinated and encouraged by pulp magazines of the day like Black Mask, Chandler wrote lines like “He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.”
Marlowe’s dialogue had a purity and straightforwardness that explains the character’s popularity with readers but Chandler (often photographed with a pipe clenched tightly between his teeth) could be difficult, noted Williams.
Chandler, left, with Wilder.
When James Cain, the author of Double Indemnity, wasn’t available to write the movie screenplay (he was under contract to another studio), the call went to Chandler. So began a rocky relationship between the author and the film’s director, Billy Wilder.
The two men were unable to get along from the first, said Williams, suggesting that collaboration wasn’t Chandler's strong suit. At one point, Chandler left the studio in a huff, complaining to the producer that Wilder did everything from arriving late to meetings to opening blinds without asking.
Despite their differences, the film that was produced stands as a classic, Williams said. In casting Fred MacMurray, better known for comedic roles, as the wayward insurance salesman, the audience found a likable murderer, he said.
Wilder wasn’t the only director that Chandler didn’t get along with. While Chandler’s name appears on a screen credit on Strangers on a Train, he didn’t have much to do with the film, often cited as one of Hitchcock’s best.
It seems that Chandler reportedly referred to Alfred Hitchcock as “that fat bastard,” a comment that Hitch apparently overheard after making a special trip to Chandler’s home in La Jolla to discuss the screenplay.
Chandler wrote a script for the film that Hitchcock not only failed to use but made a ceremonious gesture of dropping Chandler’s effort in the trash during a production meeting for the film.
Lest you think that Chandler and Philip Marlowe stand only in noir’s colorful past, the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year that the Chandler estate has been licensing new treatments of the private eye with different authors since 1989. In The Goodbye Coast, which came out in 2022, Marlowe drives a 2008 Mustang GT and knows how to use GPS.
RAYMOND CHANDLER