Raymond Chandler and Film - Hardcover

William Luhr

3.4

5 ratings by Goodreads

9780804425568: Raymond Chandler and Film

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804425566 ISBN 13: 9780804425568

Publisher: Frederick Ungar, 1982

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When in 1943, Chandler first entered Bill Wilder's office to begin collaboration on the script for Double Indemnity (1944), he knew little about the film industry and less about screenwriting. His first draft was literally hurled back at him: \"This is s___, Mr. Chandler.\" He began again. The final script was nominated for an Academy Award. Success came quickly to chandler, Though during his turbulent years in Hollywood he was to receive screen credit for only five films - among them The Blue Dahlia (1946) and Strangers on a Train (1951). His screenplays, his fiction, and the films based on that fiction rapidly became associated with a style that French critics were to baptize film noir. Before the Forties were over, there were six films based upon his novels and they included such now recognized classics as Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet (1944), Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep (1946) - scripted in part by William Faulkner - and Robert Montgomery's Lady in the Lake (1947). In the years that followed, new filmmakers were drawn to Chandler's seven novels as source material. Now in the Eighties it seems likely that we will see new screen reinterpretations of Chandler's special and instantly recognizable world. Beginning with an overview of the period in which Chandler rose to prominence, this lively study goes on to chronicle his frequently his frequently stormy career as a screenwriter and then examines in detail the films based on his fiction. Important in themselves, they helped break the grip on the censors and led to a new type of movie that continues to bear Chandler's stamp more than twenty years after his death.

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Review:

Raymond Chandler's work as a Hollywood screenwriter includes great movies such as Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity and Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. In addition, all but one of Chandler's novels has been adapted for the movies. His Philip Marlowe books have inspired classics that include Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep and Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet as well as satires of the detective film like Paul Bogart's Marlowe and Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. William Luhr's incisive analysis reveals how powerfully Chandler has influenced the genre of the detective film.

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