Born on this day – Raymond Chandler:

Raymond Chandler

Writer

July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959

Recommended reading:

Raymond Chandler: Stories and Early Novels

Anthology by Raymond Chandler.

Edited by Frank MacShane.

Published 1995.

ISBN-10: 1883011078

ISBN-13: 978-1883011079

Contents:

Pulp Stories: Blackmailers Don’t Shoot; Smart-Aleck Kill; Finger Man; Nevada Gas; Spanish Blood; Guns at Cyrano’s; Pick-Up on Noon Street; Goldfish; Red Wind; The King in Yellow; Pearls Are a Nuisance; Trouble Is My Business; I’ll Be Waiting. Novels: The Big Sleep; Farewell, My Lovely; The High Window. Chronology. Note on the texts. Notes.

Description:

In Raymond Chandler’s hands, the pulp crime story became a haunting mystery of power and corruption, set against a modern cityscape both lyrical and violent. With humor, and an unerring sense of dialogue and the telling detail, he created a fictional universe out of the dark side of aunlit Los Angeles. In the process, he transformed both the crime novel and American writing.

Stories and Early Novels includes the first three novels featuring Chandler’s great creation, private eye Philip Marlowe: tough, disillusioned, and sensitive. In The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, and The High Window, Marlowe’s investigations lead him from Los Angeles shanties and honkytonks to the highest reaches of power, encountering a world of gangsters and crooked politicians, lost souls and small-time operators. Thirteen stories from the pulp magazines Black Mask and Dime Detective include such classics as “Red Wind” and “Trouble Is My Business.” This volume, with its companion, Later Novels & Other Writings, comprises the most comprehensive edition available of America’s greatest mystery writer.

The Library of America, a nonprofit publisher, is dedicated to preserving the works of America’s greatest writers in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts.

Credits:

Books to Die For (2012); Double Indemnity (1944); Farewell, My Lovely (1940); Five Murders (1944); Five Sinister Characters (1945); Goldfish (1981); Great Law and Order Stories (1990); Hard-Boiled Detectives (1953); I’ll Be Waiting (2020); Killer in the Rain (1964); Los Angeles Noir 2 (2010); Mandarin's Jade (1937); No Crimes In The Mountains (1941); Only to Sleep (2018); Pearls are a Nuisance (1958); Perchance to Dream (1991); Pickup on Noon Street (1952); Playback (1958); Poodle Springs (1989); Pulp Fiction - The Dames (2008); Pulp Frictions: Hardboiled Stories (1996); Red Wind (1946); Selected Letters (1981); Smart-Aleck Kill (1953); Spanish Blood (1946); The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century (2000); The Big Sleep (1939); The Black-Eyed Blonde (2014); The Blue Dahlia (1976); The Curtain (1936); The Finger Man (1947); The Goodbye Coast (2022); The High Window (1942); The Lady in the Lake (1943); The Little Book of Horrors: Tiny Tales of Terror (1992); The Little Sister (1949); The Long Goodbye (1953); The Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction (2004); The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories (1988); The Man Who Liked Dogs (1996); The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler (1976); The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories (1996); The Oxford Book of Detective Stories (2000); The Second Murderer (2023); The Simple Art of Murder (1950); The Smell of Fear (1965); The World of Raymond Chandler (2014); Trouble is My Business (1950); Try The Girl (1937); Writers: Their Lives and Works (2018); Writing Los Angeles (2002).

Movies and television:

77 Sunset Strip (1958); And Now Tomorrow (1944); Aspetterò (1978); Cineficción Radio (2021); Climax! (1954); Danger (1953); Double Indemnity (1944 / 1973); Fallen Angels (1993–1995); Farewell, My Lovely (1975); Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler (2006); Ich werde warten (1982); Kraft Theatre / The Philco Television Playhouse (1949); Lady in the Lake (1946); Los 10 magníficos (2008); Lux Video Theatre (1954); Marlowe (1969 / 2007 / 2022); Mike Case in: The Big Kiss Off (2013); Morning Patrol (1987); Murder, My Sweet (1944); Nash Airflyte Theatre (1951); Omnibus (1969); Once You Meet a Stranger (1996); Philip Marlowe (1959–1960); Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983–1986); Poodle Springs (1998); Robert Montgomery Presents (1950); Schlitz Playhouse (1957); Smart Philip (2003); Storyboard (1961); Strangers on a Train (1951); Studio One (1951–1953); The Big Sleep (1946 / 1978); The Blue Dahlia (1946); The Brasher Doubloon (1947); The Falcon Takes Over (1942); The Great Detectives (1999); The Long Goodbye (1973 / 2014); The Long Goodbye: Tom Williams on Raymond Chandler (2013); The Unseen (1945); Time to Kill (1942); Triple Feature (2016); TV de Vanguarda (1957).

On this day in movie history - Double Indemnity (1944 movie & books):

Double Indemnity

directed by Billy Wilder,

written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler,

based on the novel by James M. Cain,

was released in the United States on July 3, 1944.
Music by Miklós Rózsa.

Cast:

Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, John Philliber, Raymond Chandler, Bess Flowers, Betty Farrington, Teala Loring, Sam McDaniel, Miriam Nelson, Douglas Spencer.

Recommended reading:

Double Indemnity

By James M. Cain.

Filmed as:

Double Indemnity (1944), directed by Billy Wilder.

Double Indemnity (1973), directed by Jack Smight.

Published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.

Published 1943.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 9780679723226

ISBN-13: 9780679723226

Description:

“An American masterpiece.” – Ross Macdonald.

“No one has ever stopped reading in the middle of one of Jim Cain’s books.” – Saturday Review of Literature.

Walter Huff was an insurance salesman with an unfailing instinct for clients who might be in trouble, and his instinct led him to Phyllis Nirdlinger. Phyllis wanted to buy an accident policy on her husband. Then she wanted her husband to have an accident. Walter wanted Phyllis. To get her, he would arrange the perfect murder and betray everything he had ever lived for.

Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1935, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.

Double Indemnity: The Complete Screenplay

By Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, Jeffrey Meyers.

Published by University of California Press.

Published 2000.

ISBN-10: 0520218485

ISBN-13: 9780520218482

Description:

On every level -- writing, direction, acting -- Double Indemnity (1944) is a triumph and stands as one of the greatest achievements in Billy Wilder's career. Adapted from the James M. Cain novel by director Wilder and novelist Raymond Chandler, it tells the story of an insurance salesman, played by Fred MacMurray, who is lured into a murder-for-insurance plot by Barbara Stanwyck, in an archetypal femme fatale role. From its grim story to its dark, atmospheric lighting, Double Indemnity is a definitive example of World War II-era film noir. Wilder's approach is everywhere evident: in the brutal cynicism the film displays, the moral complexity, and in the empathy we feel for the killers. The film received almost unanimous critical success, garnering seven Academy Award nominations. More than fifty years later, most critics agree that this classic is one of the best films of all time. The collaboration between Wilder and Raymond Chandler produced a masterful script and some of the most memorable dialogue ever spoken in a movie.

This facsimile edition of Double Indemnity contains Wilder and Chandler's original -- and quite different -- ending, published here for the first time. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction contextualizes the screenplay, providing hilarious anecdotes about the turbulent collaboration, as well as background information about Wilder and the film's casting and production.

Raymond Chandler, on writing:

The challenge is to write about real things magically.

- Raymond Chandler.

On this day in movie history - The Big Sleep (1978 movie & novel):

The Big Sleep

directed and written by Michael Winner,

based on the novel by Raymond Chandler,

was released in the United States on March 13, 1978.
Narrated by Robert Mitchum.
Music by Jerry Fielding.

Cast:

Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Richard Boone, Candy Clark, Joan Collins, Edward Fox, John Mills, James Stewart, Oliver Reed, Harry Andrews, Colin Blakely, Richard Todd, Diana Quick, James Donald, John Justin, Simon Fisher Turner, Martin Potter.

Recommended reading:

The Big Sleep

By Raymond Chandler.

Published by Penguin.

First published 1939.

ISBN-10: 0241970776

ISBN-13: 978-0241970775

Description:

The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective, Philip Marlowe.

A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

In 1999, the book was voted 96th of Le Monde's "100 Books of the Century".