Trouble Was His Business -- Raymond Chandler

Dec. 16, 1973: A reappraisal of "The Long Goodbye."

Note: To mark the 50th anniversary of Raymond Chandler's death, the Daily Mirror is revisiting some of The Times' stories about his life and influence. We invite the Daily Mirror's readers to share their thoughts.

Comments

[Trolley Dodger]

Hey did you guys see this in the Telegraph?

"Raymond Chandler's novels under the magnifying glass"

http://tinyurl.com/ctao3o

"Jake Kerridge says that Raymond Chandler's novels should be judged not as escapism but as art"

[Richard H]

Charles Champlin didn't care much for Robert Altman's film version of Raymond Chandler's novel "The Long Good Bye". More likely it seems he didn't care much for Robert Altman as a moviemaker.

Personally I like Altman's movies for the very reasons Champlin disliked them.

When I first saw "The Long Good Bye", I knew who Robert Altman was. He did the "MASH" movie. I didn't know who Raymond Chander was. I had seen the movie "The Big Sleep". It was ok. Bogart was good but I got lost in the plot twists.

Nobody's going to confuse Elliot Gould for Humphrey Bogart.

You don't cast Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe if you are going to do a remake of the Big Sleep. What you see is what you get. Altman didn't do a 1940's detective movie, he did a deconstruction of a 1940's detective movie. Basically Robert Altman turned the Chandler novel into a Robert Altman movie.

Leigh Brackett got credit on the screenplay for both "the Big Sleep" and "the Long Good Bye". It didn't look like she just wrote another "Big Sleep" with the Robert Altman version of the "Long Good Bye."