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From: nooks and crannies
Category: Films, Books
Date: 16 August 2005
For those who were got by the films first, it's hard not to see Bogart. I prefer the noireish second hand private dick to his literary incarnation. And that's upside down. By the book, Chandler's Marlowe seems such a goody goody, despite his cynicism and his cracking wise, he's always priggishly moral and helpful, like some evangelical Christian impersonating a hard-boiled investigator. Usually it's American movies that tend to impose a happy ending and soften the edges of the outsiders with phony morals, but here we find Chandler playing us a double game, letting us enjoy the first person view of life's seedy compromises, but giving us a detective who exemplifies absolute integrity and a refusal to be corrupted. Bullshit, if you ask me. The sort of dope you spin to chumps.
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