Here he goes again:
When I first saw the movies, I had hardly read anything
except what we would now call YA movies. I was also a person
who didn't, and sometimes to this day still don't, remember
names.
For me, I may have remembered Sam Spade or Bogart, but I
didn't know Dick Powell from Adam Clayton Powell ... well,
maybe. For me Powell's Marlowe was "the main detective." As I
got to know names better the characters in movies became,
"The Bogart Character," the "Paul Newman Character,"
etc.
When I started to read "big people" stuff (Starting with THE
CARPETBAGGERS) It was a while before I read THE MALTESE
FALCON, FAREWELL MY LOVELY, and THE BIG SLEEP.
I was shocked at the "blond Satan" description of Spade, even
more surprised when after maybe 25 years I saw MURDER, MY
SWEET, and seeing from the titles that it was the movie
version of FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, I was again shocked to
realized that Dick Powell was playing Marlowe. But that was
OK. I thought both Bogart and Powell did excellent
Marlowes.
Each brought something different to the role. Each was good,
and I couldn't imagine either playing in the others
version.
So who was better? It's a tie for me.
Besides, I'm the guy who was so unsophisticated, that he
thought Bogart defined the private eye no matter what his
name happened to be. But I was a latecomer to private eye
fiction.
Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Meanwhile, back to Michael Connelly.
Jack Bludis
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