Farewell, My Lovely (Phillip Marlowe)

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According to Mitchum, Kastner originally wanted the role of Philip Marlowe to be played by Richard Burton, with whom Kastner had worked a number of times. However, Burton was busy so they approached Mitchum. (Richards says he was only ever interested in doing the film with Mitchum.) [5] The star later recalled: It's impossible to think of anything that might be remotely fresh and interesting to say about this book. It's a classic of crime fiction; it was first published in 1940, and it's been reviewed thousands of times, mostly by people far more competent than I. There's also a lot of beautiful landscape prose which can get missed and his attention to detail (or maybe Marlowe's) is impressive. There is a scene where he watches a little bug moving round the office and it's really quite funny and observant. The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in. Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.”—Ross Macdonald

It's dated -largely in a cool way. Nowadays attitudes are different but there is racism, referring to overly groomed men as pansies, the way women are thought of and described- these are historically accurate now and were contemporary at the time of writing. Everyone chain smokes and is practically alcoholic too. Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.”–Robert B. Parker, The New York Times Book Review

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Steve: Well, let’s see… Maybe the first book I read where a certain shadowy deportment really popped as a pure statement of style was Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely. The book itself was a cannibalization of three earlier short stories of his. Whereas the stories were neatly contained as standalones, the edits in piecing them together were more slapdash, sacrificing both congruency and clarity in the process. Chandler responded saying, "My whole career is based on the idea that the formula doesn't matter, the thing that counts is what you do with the formula; that is to say, it is a matter of style.” And of course that hard-boiled, noir feel of his is prevalent to this day. The first 1/4 is quite slow, clumsy even (see below). But then it quite suddenly gets wonderful. I wish I could know what happened to Chandler to wake him up. The prose suddenly soars. in Marlowe’s dressing room. Marlowe accuses Grayle of killing Marriott, and Grayle pulls a gun on Marlowe. Malloy comes out of the closet because he recognizes Helen Grayle’s voice as that of Velma Valento, his lost love. He suddenly realizes that she was the one who betrayed him to the police eight years previously. Grayle shoots Malloy five times in the stomach, then escapes and disappears. Malloy dies. Update: It turns out this book is a (clumsy) conglomeration of three of Chandler’s previous short stories: When embarking on a night’s work he makes the observation, “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.”

Hemingway went around and pushed his hard stomach behind the wheel. He started the car. We turned and drifted off down the driveway lined with wild geraniums. A cold wind lifted off the sea. The stars were too far off. They said nothing. Steve: Actually, that’s often how it works with me – seemingly on point for brief spurts before devolving into flapdoodle. Besides, I just thought of another one: Lucille Ball + Desi Arnaz. They’d be Ba, Bu, bu, b… If possible the plot/story-line of Farewell, My Lovely is even more convoluted than its predecessor, The Big Sleep. Marlowe meeting new players with each twist and turn of the investigation and getting physically bounced around on a regular basis. (For the politically correct there are a handful of racial slurs here which may make the reader cringe.) But somehow the author ties it all together in the end with maybe a not so neat bow. Host: I’m afraid we may be veering off course as litterateurs, my friends. This isn’t an episode of I Love Lucy, after all. Should we redirect ourselves? Steve? As both investigations unfold, Marlowe's life and personality come into plainer view. He is a tough-talker and more intelligent than most people give him credit for. He has a great many friends on the police force, some of them help grudgingly, others are invaluable to Marlowe. He also enjoys the company of an exciting woman. In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe meets two very different women who prove to be equally interesting and attractive to him. Anne Riordan is the Irish girl next door. She is young, fresh, full of ideas and sometimes too impetuous for her own good. Anne has a good heart and a just-pretty-enough face. On the other hand, Mrs. Grayle smolders. Her blond hair and ample figure hold Marlowe's attention a little too well. Mrs. Grayle is a woman with a secret, however, which makes her a liability. At the end of the day, though, Marlowe likes his life the way it is: sparse and edgy with few emotional attachments. Marlowe also likes his liquor, medicinal and otherwise.

Finally, there are the passages that aren’t just clever quips or snappy dialogue, but that convey a real sense of emotion. jazz έφταναν στα αυτιά μου και τα μάτια μου μισόκλειναν από τη μέθη της ατμόσφαιρας. Ο Φίλιπ Μάρλοου το πήγαινε καλά. Τον εμπιστευόμουν, πάντα οριακά, κι αυτός ήταν ο λόγος που μπορούσα να αντλήσω ευχαρίστηση και να απολαμβάνω ηδονικά τα περίεργα σκηνικά που μου ξεφούρνιζε, γεμάτα ευαισθησία, αισθησιασμό, περηφάνια και τόλμη. Η προσωπικότητα του ντετέκτιβ ανέδιδε τη μελαγχολία αυτή που χαίρεται κανείς να προσλαμβάνει εκ του ασφαλούς, εξ αποστάσεως. It was a hard day’s night, αλλά το ουίσκυ θα είναι πάντα μια καλή λύση σε όλα τα προβλήματα. Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner. . . . An original. . . . A great artist.”— The Boston Book Review

That is the trifecta of writing. Brilliant, sharp and fun….descriptive, informative and polished…and evocative, moving and powerful. Gene Siskel gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that "if a remake of Farewell, My Lovely isn't something fresh—and following on the heels of Chinatown doesn't make it any fresher — at least the casting of Mitchum as Marlowe was inspired. Mitchum, the actor who makes nodding off seem glamorous, plays Marlowe with a delicious ease. He sounds just like Marlowe should sound." [12] Anne Riordan congratulates Marlowe, but he still refuses to kiss her. Three months later, a detective finds Velma/Helen Grayle in Baltimore; she shoots him, and then herself, rather than be taken prisoner. Marlowe relates this story to Lt. Randall at the end of the novel. He ends on a note of regret: “I rode down to the Street floor and went out on the steps of the City Hall. It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way—but not as far as Velma had gone.” Scarafaggi. Un'altra uccisione di scarafaggi. Ecco che cosa mi capita dopo diciotto anni di servizio. Niente taglia e niente stampa. Nemmeno due righe di cronaca».” I didn’t say anything. I lit my pipe again. It makes you look thoughtful when you’re not thinking.”I started reading Raymond Chandler's novels to complete my thriller culture. I thought I would find that same cliché of the solitary and invincible detective laying down the law in the streets of Los Angeles. So yes, it's partly true, but the novel is not just a story of gangsters; the essential lies in the talent of Chandler: the atmosphere, the intrigue, and the writing are remarkable. Reading Raymond Chandler is a bit like wandering through a haunted house. You know that around every corner will be something new, some person popping out with a chainsaw to make you scream. In Chandler's case, it is an incredible description or metaphor or stylized piece of dialogue that will make you scream, and they'll be screams of delight. Although not technically an adaptation, the "Harlem Nocturne" episode of the television series The New Mike Hammer (aired 26 November 1986 on CBS) borrowed major plot details from the novel's story of the search by a huge ex-con for his former girlfriend and criminal partner, including the fight in the bar and someone deliberately identifying a photo incorrectly and then being killed. [ citation needed] I wasn't completely sold on Farewell, My Lovely at first. It seemed like it took a little longer to get started than the Big Sleep. Once Marlowe got warmed up and I forgave it for not being The Big Sleep, I was completely absorbed by the writing. Chandler's poetic prose only got better in the gap between the Big Sleep and this book. There were even more quotable lines in this one. Chandler's similes reminded me of P.G. Wodehouse's at times, maybe the kind old Plum would write if he was in the grips of a powerful hangover.

Farewell, My Lovely, like many of Chandler's novels, was written by what he called cannibalising previous short stories [2]—taking previously written short stories and altering them to fit together as a novel. This practice is sometimes known as a fix-up. In this case the three stories were "Try the Girl", "Mandarin's Jade", and "The Man Who Liked Dogs". [ citation needed] Hiney, Tom. Raymond Chandler: A Biography. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997. Supplements but does not supersede Frank MacShane’s biography. Hiney makes good use of memoirs, critical studies, and new archival material documenting Chandler’s life and career. And because -- let's be fair -- this came out in 1940, we need to adjust our sensibilities. Just a little. As a character, Marlowe is an alcoholic racist who lets his boredom rule his feet and his mouth. Audience Question: You’re known for your essay on the Kantian aesthetic of disinterested judgment as seen in the works of James Joyce, William Gaddis, and Dan Brown. Are there other authors or titles that come to mind, perhaps even more focused on the primacy of style?

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Richard Eder of The New York Times described the film as "a handsome mediocrity" with an ending that "may produce some confusion," though he praised "the high quality of a lot of the acting". [14] Fresh off The Big Sleep detective Philip Marlowe is at it again in this sequel to that highly popular and well-written mystery. Farewell, My Lovely is an admirable followup, but it would be tough to meet or top one of the best detective novels of all time. But, you always get the mean streets of Los Angeles no matter how you picture Marlowe. These streets range from the seedy joints lining Central Avenue to the estates in Beverly Hills and Brentwood Heights. The streets lead of course to Chandler's fictional Bay City, loosely based on what was a crooked Santa Monica right down to the gambling boats three legal miles offshore.