sourpuss

novelist raymond chandler seems to have fallen from the skies, pushed through the clouds by loving angels who appreciated his brilliant mind and just got sick and tired of such a miserable individual. so, thanks to them we get to read his deeply poetic forays into the underworld. even if they are not all equal in brilliance, he wrote enough to last a lifetime.

hollywood roped him in (he may have needed the money) and while clenching his teeth at the mere thought of writing for film, he did write the screenplay for 'double indemnity', a film that is surely genius. among all the unplesant remarks he made about the business i did find this lovely quote:

'Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid . . . He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.' -raymond chandler.

photos: chandler and someone who understands/dick powell as 'marlowe'/the best novel of them all