RARA-AVIS: Re: Chandler's The Lady in the Lake

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 07 Nov 2007


Nathan,

Re your comment below:

"I hope it wasn't Chandler who had Marlowe get engaged at the end."

Actually, it's not really fair to single out TLITL for that. All four of the '40's era Marlowe movie end the hero seriously romantically involved with someone.
 Dick Powell with Anne Shirley at the end of MURDER, MY SWEET. Bogie with Bacall at the end of THE BIG SLEEP. And George Montgomery with Nancy Guild at the end of THE BRASHER DOUBLOON. The only one of these film romances that has even the ghost of a counterpart with the source novel is MURDER, MY SWEET. Marlowe goes out on a date with Anne Riordan at the end of FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, and Anne turns up again in the short story "The Pencil," the last Marlowe story of any length Chandler ever completed, where their feelings for each other are implied if not explicitly stated.

Marlowe is not involved with Mrs. Regan at the end of the novel version of THE BIG SLEEP, and all he does with Merle in THE HIGH WINDOW (the source for THE BRASHER DOUBLOON) is drive her home to her folks.

JIM DOHERTY

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