Philip MarloweCreated by Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
"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. I put them on and left the room."-- from Farewell, My Lovely
 What more can I say about PHILIP MARLOWE? Three Gun Mack may have been the first, Race Williamsintroduced the PI to the world and The Continental Op andSam Spade may have staked out the ambiguous moral code that would fuel the genre for years, but it was Raymond Chandler's Marlowe that would define for all time who, what, where and why a private eye here. Traces of Marlowe run fromPaul Pine to Jim Rockford to Ms. Tree to Lew Archer toSpenser. It's all here, from the loneliness, the quick, sarcastic cynical jibes masking a battered romantic, the love/hate relationship with the cops, the corruption that exists in all levels of society. It's all here. Philip Marlowe, for better or worse, is the archetypical private eye. By the time he wrote his famous essay, The Simple Art of Murder, even Chandler realized it.
.
Philip Marlowe was born in Santa Rosa, California, in "that time out of time that allowed him to be 33 in 1933, 42 in 1953, and 43 1/2 in 1958", according to Bill Henkin. He runs a single man operation out of the Cahuenga Building in Los Angeles. Tall, and big enough to take care of himself, he likes liquor, women, reading, chess and working alone, and is educated enough that he boasts he can speak English "if he's required to." He used to work for the district attorney, but was fired for insubordination, thus starting a cliche that still hasn't run out of steam. How many ex-cops are there out there that seem to have become private eyes?
.
Chandler first worked out the character of Marlowe in several short stories in Black Mask, featuring a variety of private eyes under different names. Among these pre-heroes were John Dalmas, Carmady, Ted Carmady and Mallory.
.
Marlowe has been adapted for film, television, radio, comics and audiotapes by all kinds of writers, sometimes quite successfully, particularly in film and radio, and sometimes rather disappointingly (television).
.
As the centennial of his birth approached, there was renewed interest in Chandler and a demand for new product, so Marlowe started to appear in new novels and short stories written by other writers, again with mixed results. In 1987, Hiber Conteris wrote an original Marlowe novel, Ten Percent of Life, where Marlowe returns to hunt the killer of Chandler's literary agent. Unique, to say the least. The following year, Knopf published Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe-A Centennial Celebration, a collection of Marlowe short stories by most of the top names in detective fiction. Stories ranged from merely good to astounding, as various contemporary writers brought their own strengths to bear on ol' Phil. The glaring exemption from the list of author's was Robert B. Parker, at the time the most successful of all private detective fiction writers, whose Spenser was at times so closely modelled on Marlowe as to be a parody. The reason was soon forthcoming. Parker had been at work completing Chandler's final Marlowe novel, Poodle Springs, wherein Marlowe and Linda get married (Chandler had often mentioned how difficult he had found it to write about Marlowe in a relationship). Given Spenser's relationship with Susan, the choice of Parker seemed not only right, but natural. The response to the book was decidedly mixed. Purists and other writer's in the genre screamed. Parker's own success with Spenser (including a truly mediocre, pretentious television show), and his perceived smugness probably contributed to the negative reaction. There was a lot of talk about audacity, and "how dare he?" Still, someone must have liked it. It was soon announced that Parker would write a second Marlowe novel, an all-original novel that acted as a sequel to The Big Sleep. When Perchance to Dream appearred in 1991, the grunts of protest rose to howls of anguish from certain quarters. It's interesting to note all of this was directed at Parker and none at two dozen or so other writers in A Centennial Celebration who had attempted exactly the same thing Parker had, albeit in short story form.
THE EVIDENCE
- "I see (Marlowe) always in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never quite defeated."
-- from a letter from Chandler to Maurice Guinness, dated February 21, 1959
- "I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like 'em myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings."
-- Marlowe in The Big Sleep
- "Dead men are heavier than broken hearts "
-- Marlowe in The Big Sleep
- "I'm a romantic, Bernie. I hear voices crying in the night and I go to see what's the matter. You don't make a dime that way. . . No percentage in it at all."
-- Marlowe gives the game away, to a cop buddy
NOVELS
SHORT STORIES
Most of Chandler's short stories featured earlier prototypes for Marlowe, who went by such monickers as Mallory, Ted Carmady, or John Dalmas , when they had any name at all. When they were later collected in volumes and reprinted, the names were mostly changed to Marlowe, however. So, here's what are generally available as Marlowe short stories these days, although only the last, "Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate"(AKA"Wrong Pidgeon" or "The Pencil"), was actually written as a Marlowe story..
- "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" (December 1933, Black Mask; Mallory)
- "Smart-Aleck Kill" (July 1934, Black Mask; Mallory)
- "Finger Man" (October 1934, Black Mask; Carmady)
- "Killer in the Rain" (January 1935, Black Mask; Carmady)
- "Nevada Gas" (June 1935, Black Mask)
- "Spanish Blood" (November 1935, Black Mask)
- "Guns at Cyrano's" (January 1936, Black Mask; Ted Malvern)
- "The Man Who Liked Dogs" (March 1936, Black Mask; Carmady)
- "Noon Street Nemesis" (May 30, 1936, Detective Fiction Weekly; aka "Pick-up on Noon Stree")
- "Goldfish" (June 1936, Black Mask)
- "The Curtain" (September 1936, Black Mask; Carmady)
- "Try the Girl" (January 1937, Black Mask; Carmady)
- "Mandarin's Jade" (November 1937, Dime Detective Magazine; John Dalmas)
- "Red Wind" (January 1938, Dime Detective Magazine: John Dalmas)
- "The King in Yellow" (March 1938, Dime Detective Magazine)
- "Bay City Blues" (June 1938; Dime Detective Magazine; John Dalmas)
- "The Lady in the Lake" (January 1939, Dime Detective Magazine; John Dalmas)
- "Pearls Are a Nuisance" (April 1939, Dime Detective Magazine)
- "Trouble Is My Business" (August 1939, Dime Detective Magazine; John Dalmas)
- "I'll Be Waiting" (October 14, 1939, Saturday Evening Post)
- "The Bronze Door" (November 1939)
- "No Crime in the Mountains" (September 1941, Detective Story, John Evans)
- "Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate" (April 6-10, 1959, London Daily Mail; as "Philip Marlowe's Last Case" in January 1962, EQMM; as "The Pencil" in September 1965,Argosy; as "Wrong Pidgeon" in February 1969, Manhunt)
COLLECTIONS, OMNIBUS EDITIONS
- The Simple Art of Murder (1950)...Buy this book...Kindle it!
- Killer in the Rain (1964)
- Trouble is My Business (1972)...Buy this book
- Pickup on Noon Street (1972)
- Collected Stories (2002; 1344 pages - all of his short fiction)...Buy this book
- The Big Sleep/Farewell, My Lovely/The High Window...Buy this bookOmnibus edition with introduction by Diane Johnson.
- The Lady in the Lake/The Little Sister/The Long Goodbye/Playback..Buy this bookOmnibus edition with introduction by Tom Hiney.
OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST
- Chandler, Raymond (edited by Marty Asher)
Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life....Buy this bookNew York: Knopf, 2005.
What took 'em so long? This is a no-brainer -- a collection of the wit and wisdom culled from the greatest series of private eye novels ever, offering the "rude wit," two-fisted wisecracks and bruised romanticism Marlowe was known for. A tip of the fedora to Marty Asher for finally doing what needed to be done.
MARLOWE BY OTHER WRITERS (NOVELS)
MARLOWE BY OTHER WRITERS (SHORT STORIES)
- All the following appeared in 1988's Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration, edited by Byron Preiss. A class package, heartily recommended, as some of Chandler's disciples pay heart-felt tribute to the master. A few of the writers produced possibly some of their best work in this collection. And for more than a few writers, it was a true labour of love -- Dick Lochte, for example, wrote a sequel to "Goldfish," which he's long considered the best Marlowe short story ever. Heartily recommended.
- "The Perfect Crime" (by Max Allan Collins)
- "The Black-Eyed Blonde" (by Benjamin M. Schutz)
- "Gun Music" (by Loren D. Estleman)
- "Saving Grace" (by Joyce Harrington)
- "Malibu Tag Team" (by Jonathan Valin)
- "Sad-Eyed Blonde" (by Dick Lochte)
- "The Empty Sleeve" (by W.R. Philbrick)
- "Dealer's Choice" (by Sara Paretsky)
- "Red Rock" (by Julie Smith)
- "The Deepest South" (by Paco Ignacio Taibo II)
- "Consultation In The Dark" (by Francis M. Nevins)
- "In the Jungle of Cities" (by Roger L. Simon)
- "Star Bright" (by John Lutz)
- "Stardust Kill" (by Simon Brett)
- "Locker 246" (by Robert J. Randisi)
- "Bitter Lemons" (by Stuart Kaminsky)
- "The Man Who Knew Dick Bong" (by Robert Crais)
- "Essence D'Orient" (by Edward D. Hoch)
- "In the Line of Duty" (by Jeremiah Healy)
- "The Alibi" (by Ed Gorman)
- "The Devil's Playground" (by James Grady)
- "Asia" by Eric Lustbader)
- "Mice" (by Robert Campbell).
.In 1999, ibooks marked their re-release of this classic volume, with a new intro by Robert B. Parker, by posting two previously unavailable Marlowe stories on their web site:
.
- "Sixty-Four Squares" (1999, ibooks; by J. Madison Davis)
- "Summer in Idle Valley" (1999, ibooks; by Roger L. Simon)
MARLOWE IN FILM
MARLOWE ON RADIO
MARLOWE ON TELEVISION
MARLOWE IN GRAPHIC NOVELS and OTHER MEDIA
MARLOWE ON THE WEB
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
|
