Colin,
Re your questions below:
"Has anyone else updated classic hardboiled/noir? I would
certainly love to see The Continental Op operating today and
many of Jim Thompson's characters would be much more at home
in today's world."
Three years before TLG, Chandler's 1949 novel, THE LITTLE
SISTER, was made into a film called MARLOWE, starring James
Garner in the title role.
It was set in 1969, and, though it was far more faithful to
the original than Altman's film, it did update a lot of the
details. Hence, the big-screen comedienne of the nove became
the star of a top-rated sitcom, and the studio exec who hire
Marlowe becomes a network exec. The two hoods who come to
Marlowe's office to threaten him become Bruce Lee.
"I enjoyed the movie, though I must admit I didn't really
think Elliot Gould was Phillip Marlowe and the film was more
Robert Altman than Raymond Chandler. I haven't studied the
film or criticism of it at all and assume (I'd love to know
from them that was there) it caused something of an outcry
from Chandler fans when it came out."
It still does cause outcries from Chandler fans, as well it
should, since it's a piece of crap that has so little reason
to exist that, had Altman's parents known that conceiving
Robert Altman would eventually result in his version TLG
being put on film, they would have remained celibate.
JIM DOHERTY
____________________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 12 Jan 2007 EST