I think it's time for that guy Chandler was always speaking
about to come
through the door with a gun in his hand....
But I agree (I think) about the sentimental streak that
underlies much of
Hardboiled fiction. I think Robert Parker has even gone so
far as to call
most private eye novels (and certainly his and Chandler's)
romances (not in
the Harlequin sense, but in the same sense that the Arthurian
legends, the
Leatherstocking Tales, Ivanhoe, etc. were). The trick in the
hardboiled
novel, of course, is to not let the sentimentality, that
allows the hero to
push on, to override the cynical detachment that allows him
to survive.
Or, as Marlowe put it in Playback, "If I wasn't hard, I
wouldn't be alive.
If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be
alive."
>It's always seemed to me that the best hard-boiled
voices are not just
>cynical or amused by it all. They have an undertone of
disappointment, of
>a loss of something or someone that could modulate
into sentimentalism if
>they ever let up. I've always read the conclusive
kiss-off of Brigid
>O'Shaughnessy, for instance, as more self-denial than
sadistic (regardless
>of where Bogart took it). And I always liked Dick
Powell's Marlowe in
>_Murder, My Sweet_, in part because he manages to
express a hurt behind the
>wise cracks.
Bill's right. And I wonder: does anyone else think that
Powell was the
best film Marlowe?
I always felt Bogart's version was just Spade: The Sequel,
and Mitchum,
while good, was too old, too big, too reptilian. Montgomery,
on reflection,
just wasn't there; and Garner was already warming up for
Rockford (not that
there's anything wrong with that). I also liked Elliot
Gould's portrayal,
but I think Powell really captured the two sides of Marlowe
better than
anyone. I think of him, half-dead, being interogated by the
cops, and that
(apparently improvised) scene where he does the little dance
step.
But I digress....
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Kevin Smith
The Thrilling Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
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