Playback - Raymond Chandler

Lady in the Lake - Raymond Chandler

to as “a slot machine,” the none-too-subtle connotation being he’ll do anything for money). But I digress, slightly. Like many of the adaptations of Chandler’s novels, they’re never quite Chandler, the movie has to accommodate itself to an audience expecting certain generic convention and themes, and this one plays around a great deal with the story and the characters and can be frustrating at first. But if you’ve seen this film, don’t be tricked into thinking that you’ve read the book, because you haven’t. Second prefatory note: do not read Chandler’s Killer in the Rain before reading this novel. As there is a short story titled, curiously: The Lady in the Lake, ...

Lady in the Lake - Raymond Chandler

to as “a slot machine,” the none-too-subtle connotation being he’ll do anything for money). But I digress, slightly. Like many of the adaptations of Chandler’s novels, they’re never quite Chandler, the movie has to accommodate itself to an audience expecting certain generic convention and themes, and this one plays around a great deal with the story and the characters and can be frustrating at first. But if you’ve seen this film, don’t be tricked into thinking that you’ve read the book, because you haven’t. Second prefatory note: do not read Chandler’s Killer in the Rain before reading this novel. As there is a short story titled, curiously: The Lady in the Lake, ...

Raymond Chandler in general

time they are set in. Obviously, they were contemporary at the time of writing, but they provide a fascinating insight into the attitudes of the time, the clothes (according to Chandler, there was an explosion of colour in what we think of as a black-and-white world) although the key storylines are very relevant today. In "Lake", there's even a small insight into the effect the war was having even in California. When speaking of attitudes, the most obvious one that you see is the bad treatment of blacks by some of the characters (although never by Marlowe himself). They are referred to as "smokes" quite often and a murder of one of them is ...

Raymond Chandler in general

time they are set in. Obviously, they were contemporary at the time of writing, but they provide a fascinating insight into the attitudes of the time, the clothes (according to Chandler, there was an explosion of colour in what we think of as a black-and-white world) although the key storylines are very relevant today. In "Lake", there's even a small insight into the effect the war was having even in California. When speaking of attitudes, the most obvious one that you see is the bad treatment of blacks by some of the characters (although never by Marlowe himself). They are referred to as "smokes" quite often and a murder of one of them is ...

Raymond Chandler in general

Chandler's biggest achievement in my opinion is creating the character of Philip Marlowe. 'The Big Sleep' was written in 1939 and Marlowe is a tough talking dick with a quirky(?!) sense of humour. This character has such a realness, and is popular onscreen when Bogart plays it. Chandler manages to bring us into a world of ...

Raymond Chandler in general

Chandler's biggest achievement in my opinion is creating the character of Philip Marlowe. 'The Big Sleep' was written in 1939 and Marlowe is a tough talking dick with a quirky(?!) sense of humour. This character has such a realness, and is popular onscreen when Bogart plays it. Chandler manages to bring us into a world of ...