Raymond Chandler Wanted Cary Grant to Play Philip Marlowe

Olivia Rutigliano offers a piece at CrimeReads.com on the late, great crime novelist Raymond Chandler wanting actor Cary Grant to portray his iconic private eye character Philip Marlowe.

Humphrey Bogart will go down in history as the actor most associated with the detective character Phillip Marlowe, but he wasn’t the first actor to play him, and he wasn’t author Raymond Chandler’s first preference.

In 1944, the washed-up musical star Dick Powell played the sleuth in the first film adaptation of a Chandler novel Farewell, My Lovely (retitled to Murder, My Sweet, lest it seem like another musical). The movie relaunched Powell’s career, and Chandler was not disappointed with the casting decision. Powell bought an air of refinement that Chandler had initially envisioned for his P.I. But actually, he said later, the actor he most wanted to play his detective was Cary Grant.

What a movie that would have been. But anyway.

“I like people with manners, grace, some social intuition, an education slightly above the Reader’s Digest fan,” he mentioned in a letter to his colleague, the writer George Harmon Coxe. When writing to movie producer John Houseman, he stressed that Marlowe was an “honorable man” above all, and this quality needed to shine through.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link: 

https://crimereads.com/raymond-chandler-wanted-cary-grant-to-play-philip-marlowe/

Note: Think of Cary Grant portraying Marlowe as he portrayed a tough guy gambler in Mr. Lucky (seen in the top and above photos), as I noted in my Crime Beat column on Raymond Chandler.

You can read my Crime Beat column on Raymond Chandler via the below link:  

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/11/on-raymond-chandlers-influence-on-crime.html

Happy Birthday To Cary Grant

As Biography.com notes, today is the birthday of one of my favorite actors, Cary Grant.

Cary Grant was born January 18, 1904, in Bristol, England. He ran away from home at 13 to perform as a juggler with a comedy troupe. They later toured the U.S., where he honed his acting skills. In the 1930s he signed with Paramount Pictures. He made films well into the 1960s, establishing a debonair persona that made him a screen icon. He died in 1986, having received an honorary Oscar in 1970.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a short video on Cary Grant's life via the below link:

http://www.biography.com/people/cary-grant-9318103

Note: Ian Fleming wanted Cary Grant to portray his iconic character James Bond on the screen and Raymond Chandler wanted Grant to portray his iconic character Philip Marlowe. Watch Mr. Lucky and Notorious and you will see how Cary Grant would have played these famous characters.  

Revealed: The Secret Telegram That Shows Ian Fleming Wanted Alfred Hitchcock To Direct The First James Bond Film

Imagine a James Bond film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with Cary Grant portraying James Bond.

Graham Smith at the British newspaper the Daily Mail reports on a telegram Ian Fleming sent his friend and fellow thriller writer Eric Ambler about the first James Bond film.

James Bond creator wanted Alfred Hitchock to direct the first 007 movie, it has emerged.

A telegram sent in 1959 has revealed one of the biggest "what ifs" in British cinema history and will James Bond fans shaken and stirred. Fleming sent the communique in which he asked Hitchcock to take the helm of the first Bond film through a mutual friend.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144638/Revealed-The-secret-telegram-shows-Ian-Fleming-wanted-Alfred-Hitchcock-direct-Bond-film.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Note: Although not mentioned in the story, both Fleming and film producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli thought Hitchcock favorite Cary Grant would make a fine James Bond. Grant, who was Broccoli's best man at his wedding, agreed to portray Bond in one film only. As the producers hoped to produce a series of Bond films, they opted to hire Sean Connery to portray Bond and Terence Young to serve as the director. And the rest is cinema history.

The above photo shows the James Bond film team: From left to right is producer Cubby Broccoli, actor Sean Connery, writer Ian Fleming and producer Harry Saltzman.