Raymond Chandler And 'The Annotated Big Sleep'

In my previous post, I offered the late, great crime novelist Raymond Chandler’s view of organized crime in America.

As I noted, I have been an admirer of Raymond Chandler since I was a teenager. I’ve read all of his crime novels, short stories, his commentary and several biographies of the writer. 

Back in 2018, I reviewed The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler for the Washington Times.

 

You can read the review via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: The Annotated Big Sleep: A Look Back At The Late, Great Raymond Chandler And His Classic Crime Novel, 'The Big Sleep' 

Raymond Chandler On Organized Crime in America

I finished rereading Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye last night. 

This is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I’ve read the late, great writer’s crime novel. 

I love Raymond Chandler’s character Philip Marlowe, the private detective, and I love Chandler’s writing, with his vivid descriptions of people. places and things, his striking similes, and his memorable dialogue. 

Forget the Robert Altman film The Long Goodbye (although I have a soft spot for Eliot Gould), Chandler’s novel is more complicated, dark and suspenseful. 

In The Long Goodbye, Chandler has Marlowe give his view of crime in America. 

“We’re a big rough wild people and crime is the price we pay for it, and organized crime is the price we pay for organization,” Marlowe says in the novel. “We’ll have it with us a long time. Organized crime is just the dirty side of the sharp dollar.”      

Note: Above is a photo of James Garner as Philip Marlowe in the 1969 film, Marlowe. He is my favorite Philip Marlowe on film. Garner is big and handsome, smokes a pipe like Marlowe in the novels, and he is very good with the wise cracks. 

You can watch Marlowe via the below link:

Bing Videos

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

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Beat Column: A Look Back At Raymond Chandler's Influence On Crime Novels And Films 

Warner Archive Blu-Ray Release: James Garner's Wartime Spy Thriller '36 Hours'

I saw 36 Hours in a movie theater when I was a kid back in 1964 and I watched the movie on TV a few years ago. The World War II espionage film, starring James Garner, is an interesting, suspenseful and very clever wartime spy thriller. 

Doug Oswald at Cinemaretro.com offers a review of the film, which Warner Archive has just released on Blu-Ray. 

James Garner is an American Army intelligence officer who is one of the men behind the planning of D-Day when he’s kidnapped by the Germans in neutral Portugal just days prior to the invasion of Normandy in “36 Hours,” released on Blu-ray as part of the Warner Archive Collection. Major Jefferson Pike (Garner) is sent on a routine intelligence gathering mission to Lisbon, but it turns out to be a ruse by the Germans to kidnap Pike in order to get him to reveal the invasion plans. They drug him and transport him to Germany where Pike wakes up six years later in a U.S. Army hospital suffering from amnesia. It’s 15 May 1950 and the war has been over for several years, but Pike can’t remember anything after his night in Lisbon.

In reality, it’s still a few days before D-Day and the Germans have created an elaborate deception in order to convince Pike he’s receiving treatment at a military hospital in American occupied Germany. The Allied invasion was victorious, and the war is over. Pike’s doctor, Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor), is in reality a German psychiatrist who developed the elaborate plan in order to gather the invasion plan date and location for Nazi Germany. A base camp filled with fake Americans and German nationals are roaming the grounds to set Pike at ease and disorient him at the same time, but also to convince him he is indeed located at an American military hospital in Germany. The Germans have gone to elaborate steps to make the trap work by dying the edges of his hair gray and putting drops in his eyes to trick him into believing he needs prescription glasses in order for Pike to accept he has aged six years. There are fake newspapers in his room, pictures of his parents, American books and a fake radio station plays American “oldies” from the 1930s and early 40s. He also learns he’s married to Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint), his nurse for all these years and a Jewish concentration camp survivor. Gerber has 36 hours to complete his plan, but he is under extreme pressure from Gestapo agent Werner Peters (Otto Shack) to use torture in order to retrieve the information in Pike’s head.

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

https://cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/10440-REVIEW-36-HOURS-1964-STARRING-JAMES-GARNER,-EVA-MARIE-SAINT-AND-ROD-TAYLOR;-WARNER-ARCHIVE-BLU-RAY-RELEASE.html 

Ten Wyatt Earp Vendetta Ride Myths

I've long been a fan of Western dramas about frontier deputy marshal Wyatt Earp, going back to my childhood when Hugh O'Brian (seen in the below photo) portrayed Earp on TV.

I later watched old movies on TV, such as John Ford's My Darling Clementine with Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp (director Ford met the aging Wyatt Earp in Los Angeles) and later still I went to the theater and saw movies about Earp, such as John Sturges' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with Burt Lancaster as Earp, and another John Sturges film about Wyatt Earp, The Hour of the Gun, with James Garner this time as Earp (seen in the below photo).

Good films all, and I've watched them time and again over the years, but as I began to read history I discovered that the TV series and the films were all historically inaccurate, with The Hour of the Gun  being the closest of those early films to the real story.

George P. Cosmatos' 1993 film Tombstone, with Kurt Russell as Earp (seen in the top and below photos), is perhaps overall the closest to being historically accurate, but even that film fictionalized events, such as the gunfight between Doc Holiday and Johnny Ringo, which never happened, and got things wrong, such as they Vendetta Ride.

Peter Brand at True West offers a piece that points out 10 myths about Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Ride, which occurred after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral (which actually happened on the lot behind the O.K. Corral).

You can read the piece via the below link:

https://truewestmagazine.com/10-earp-vendetta-ride-myths/ 

You can also read my Washington Times review of Tom Clavin's outstanding book about Earp and other Western legends in Dodge City via the below link:   

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/03/my-washington-times-review-of-dodge.html 

And if you would like to read a good biography of Wyatt Earp, I'd recommend Casey Tofertiller's  Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend.

'As My Old Pappy Used To Say': 13 Crucial Life Lessons 'Maverick' Learned From His Pappy

I was a huge fan of the Western TV show Maverick with James Garner (seen in the above photo) when I was a kid and I’ve been recording rerun of the show on MeTV.  

I think the old show holds up fairly well and the late James Garner was terrific as Bret Maverick. (I was not as fond of Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick and other characters).

Maverick used to quote his “old Pappy” to make a point and the sayings were always clever and amusing. Metv.com offers 13 of the old sayings in a recent piece.   

Maverick didn't play by the same rules as other TV westerns of its time, like Gunsmoke or Bonanza. It even popularly poked fun at those shows in episodes ("Gun-Shy" and "Three Queens Full," respectively) that lovingly spoofed other western shows that ended up with much longer series' runs.

But that sort of behavior is just what you'd expect from Maverick - breaking or bending rules - and longtime fans will remember that the law of the land in Maverick wasn't laid out by any sheriff, but by old Pappy, the Maverick brothers' sage father who sent his sons Bart and Bret out with a thousand dollar bill each and about a bajillion pieces of advice the characters would turn to any time they got into trouble on the show.

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

http://metv.com/lists/13-crucial-life-lessons-maverick-learned-from-his-pappy  

You can watch the opening of the show with the theme song via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrsDT02OcE&index=10&list=PLnj5cjUJ9f9HTdZjDxj4rR2nVsObzYxRq  

James Garner RIP

I was hospitalized when the actor James Garner died, so I was unable to post anything about his life and death.

I've been a Garner fan since I was a kid watching Garner as Bret Maverick on television. I also loved Garner as Jim Rockford on The Rockford Files. 

Garner also starred in a number of good films, including The Americanization of Emily, The Great Escape, Support Your Local Sheriff, Up Periscope, Darby's Rangers and The Hour of the Gun. 

My favorite Garner film is the one where he portrayed one of my favorite characters, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.

Garner portrayed the wise-cracking, tough private detective in 1969's Marlowe.

I've written here before that I believe Garner is the actor who comes closest to Chandler's Philip Marlowe character.

Had the film been set in the proper period, the 1940s, instead of a contemporary setting, the film would have been near-perfect.

I read James Garner's interesting memoir The Garner Files a while back and I recomend the book to his many fans. 

A Look Back At TV's Most Beloved Detectives

In light of the finale of HBO's True Detective series, Sara Stewart at the New York Post offers a look back at some of the most popular detectives on TV, like Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, Peter Faulk as Lt. Columbo and James Garner as Jim Rockford.

You can read the piece and watch video clips on the TV detectives via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2014/03/08/13-of-tvs-most-beloved-detectives/

A Look Back At "The Big Sleep," Raymond Chandler's Arresting New Formula For Crime Fiction

The British newspaper the Guardian looks back at Raymond Chandler classic crime novel, The Big Sleep.

Seventy-five years ago this week a revolution in crime-writing began when Knopf published The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler's first novel. Reviews in 1939 were wary and unenthusiastic, however, and only gradually was it recognised that Chandler had pulled off a bold fusion of highbrow and lowbrow – much-applauded by authors such as WH Auden, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, but also much-imitated by fellow chroniclers of murder.

What was so new? Almost everything in the first chapter, which introduces Philip Marlowe as he visits the Sternwood family mansion. Marlowe speaks to us. Whereas Holmes, Poirot, Maigret, Sam Spade are observed externally, Marlowe is the detective as autobiographer, starting three consecutive sentences in the first paragraph with "I" (ending with "I was calling on four million dollars").

He is a private detective, yet not patrician. By showing him meeting his social betters, Chandler's opening contrasts him as a man of the people (like a cop in this, but too nonconformist to be one) with the likes of Holmes and Lord Peter Wimsey, who don't need the money. Even calling on a potential client – Holmes waits for them to call on him, Poirot has agreeable invitations to country houses – sets him apart.

He is single, and attracted and attractive to women. The opening's flirtatious encounter with kittenish Carmen Sternwood differentiates him from his predecessors, who tend to be either sexless or married.

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

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/06/raymond-chandler-new-formula-crime-fiction-big-sleep

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Raymond Chandler's influence on crime films and crime novels via the below link:

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

Note: The above photo shows James Garner (on the left) as Raymond Chandler's iconic priviate detective character Philip Marlowe in the 1969 film, Marlowe. The film is based on Chandler's novel The Little Sister. A good number of actors have portrayed Philip Marlowe, but James Garner is my favorite.  

Marlowe's Ghost: John Banville To Revive Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's Classic Private Eye Character

David L. Ulin at the Los Angeles Times wrote a piece on the news that author John Banville plans to write a continuation novel about Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's great private detective character.

Call me dubious. When Henry Holt announced Tuesday that it would be reviving Raymond Chandler’s detective hero Philip Marlowe— 54 years after the author’s final Marlowe novel, “Playback” — I was (to put it mildly) underwhelmed.

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Partly, that’s because the idea isn’t new: Robert B. Parker did it 20-some years ago, first with “Poodle Springs,” a novel Chandler started before his death in 1959, and then with “Perchance to Dream,” a sequel to “The Big Sleep.” If the notion of writing a sequel to the first novel in a series seems a bit redundant, then you’re beginning to see the source of my skepticism.

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

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http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-jc-the-reading-life-marlowes-ghost-20120808,0,1427687.story

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Note: The above photo shows actor James Garner as Philip Marlowe in the 1969 film Marlowe.   

James Garner Looks Back On His Life And Acting Career in 'The Garner Files'

I've enjoyed watching James Garner on TV since I was a kid and saw him in Maverick. Years later, I would watch him again in The Rockford Files. 

I also enjoyed watching him in films such as The Americanization of Emily, Support Your Local Sheriff, The Hour of the Gun, The Great Escape and many others. I particularly liked Garner as Raymond Chandler's iconic character Philip Marlowe in the 1969 film Marlowe.

I feel as if I know James Garner and like him as a friend, so I'm looking forward to reading his memoir, The Garner Files.

Mary McNamara wrote an interesting review of the book at the Los Angeles Times.

Many actors have breathed life into a memorable or even iconic role but only a few are capable of reconstructing an archetype. In "Maverick" and then again "The Rockford Files," James Garner stepped into two of TV's most calcified genres — the western and the detective series — and set a new standard that others have been chasing down since. Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford were different in many ways — Maverick was a fast-talking con man in the Old West, Rockford a modern L.A. private investigator with motivation issues — but they shared an important trait: They were reluctant heroes. Each would much rather wisecrack his way out of a jam, but if you pushed him hard enough, you would invariably find yourself counting angels on the ceiling.

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

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-et-book-20111101-24,0,4362112.story

The Garner Files: James Garner's Memoir To Be Released In November

I was pleased to read in The Los Angeles Times that one of my favorite actors, James Garner, has written a memoir.

I've been a Garner fan since I was a kid watching Garner as Bret Maverick on television. I also loved Garner as Jim Rockford on The Rockford Files. 

Garner also starred in a number of good films, including The Americanization of Emily, The Great Escape, Support Your Local Sheriff, Up Periscope, Darby's Rangers and The Hour of the Gun. 

My favorite Garner film is the one where he portrayed one of my favorite characters, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Garner portrayed the wise-cracking, tough private detective in 1969's Marlowe.

I've written here before that I believe Garner is the actor who comes closest to Chandler's Marlowe. Had the film been set in the proper period, the 1940s, instead of a contemporary setting, the film would have been near-perfect. (The above MGM photo is of James Garner as Philip Marlowe).

I look forward to reading James Garner's book.

You can read the newspaper story via the below link:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/03/james-garner-will-publish-a-memoir-with-simon-schuster.html

Raymond Chandler and His Wife Cissy Are Finally Reunited

The late, great crime writer Raymond Chandler has finally been reunited with his wife Cissy, Diane Bell reports in The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Cissy Chandler's remains, held in a mausoleum for 57 years, was laid with her husband in a ceremony in San Diego. A good number of Raymond Chandler fans were attendance, including actor Powers Booth, who portrayed Chandler's iconic character Philip Marlowe in a series on HBO in the 1980s.

You can read Diane Bell's piece via the below link:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/feb/14/philip-marlowe-appears-at-raymond-chandler/#

The top photo is of Raymond Chandler and the above photo is of Cissy Chandler. Below is a DVD cover of Powers Booth's HBO series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, and the bottom photo shows some of the actors who portrayed Philip Marlowe in films and on TV. (My personal favorite is James Garner, who appeared in the 1969 film Marlowe).