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. Philip Marlowe, his cynical, hard-boiled private eye, set the standard for rough, brooding heroes with a strong sense of honor despite living in an unfair world. Like Ian Fleming's James Bond, Marlowe has lived beyond his creator's works, appearing in radio and television shows and in numerous film adaptations.

Chandler's seven novels, including The Big Sleep (1939) and The Long Goodbye (1953), with their pessimistic view of life and stark, grim realism, had a direct influence on the emergence of film noir. In addition to the novels, Chandler wrote short stories and penned the screenplays for several films, including Double Indemnity (1944) and Strangers on a Train (1951).

Gene Phillips has written the first major biocritical study of Chandler in twenty years. It is the only one to explore Chandler's unpublished script for Lady in the Lake, examine the differences in the American and British releases of Strangers on a Train, discuss the merits of the unproduced screenplay for Playback, and compare Howard Hawks's director's cut of The Big Sleep with the version shown in theaters.

Phillips treats all of Chandler's original scripts, his adaptations of others' works, and screenplays based upon his own novels, providing insights into Chandler's genius and the power of his vision to transcend the constraints of a single art form.