Typed Letter Signed
By CHANDLER, Raymond
("Ray"), on light blue personal 6925 Neptune Place letterhead, La Jolla, June 3, 1957. 4to. 2 pages (on separate leaves, stapled together). To Edgar N. Carter at N.H. Swanson Company in West Hollywood: "Would it make any difference to a TV deal if I agreed to write the dialogue? (not the story -- only, I suppose, what you could call a polish job). Of course the writer would loathe me. I must make it clear that any work I should do would on be done in any TV studio since it might be from Tahiti or Tasmania. I understand that changes might be made because some actor might say, "This line just isn't me," or some director might, like George Marshall, have an itching pencil. I ought to have something to say about who is to play the part. I think the actor is more important than the summer radio shot. I think you have the job of convincing these lauatics that if a show is to last, it must cost not too much and must have some sort of special quality. Marlowe is a character of some nobility, of scorching wit, sad but not defeated, lonely but never really sure of himself. It is impossible to think that such a man would not have a sex life, but so many writers of this sort of story have made it too blatant and too vulgar. Marlowe would get almost any woman into bed with him by a certain obscure technique which depends almost entirely on making a woman feel that you respect her. Some of this has to go into Philip Marlowe, if his is to be any good. If it is not possible to achieve this, I think we should forget the whole thing. After all, a great many writers have been trying to steal him from me for 15 years and they have never done it yet"
Publication year: 1957
Vendor: Houle Rare Books/Autographs/ABAA/PADA
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By CHANDLER, Raymond
("Ray"), on light blue personal 6925 Neptune Place letterhead, La Jolla, June 3, 1957. 4to. 2 pages (on separate leaves, stapled together). To Edgar N. Carter at N.H. Swanson Company in West Hollywood: "Would it make any difference to a TV deal if I agreed to write the dialogue? (not the story -- only, I suppose, what you could call a polish job). Of course the writer would loathe me. I must make it clear that any work I should do would on be done in any TV studio since it might be from Tahiti or Tasmania. I understand that changes might be made because some actor might say, "This line just isn't me," or some director might, like George Marshall, have an itching pencil. I ought to have something to say about who is to play the part. I think the actor is more important than the summer radio shot. I think you have the job of convincing these lauatics that if a show is to last, it must cost not too much and must have some sort of special quality. Marlowe is a character of some nobility, of scorching wit, sad but not defeated, lonely but never really sure of himself. It is impossible to think that such a man would not have a sex life, but so many writers of this sort of story have made it too blatant and too vulgar. Marlowe would get almost any woman into bed with him by a certain obscure technique which depends almost entirely on making a woman feel that you respect her. Some of this has to go into Philip Marlowe, if his is to be any good. If it is not possible to achieve this, I think we should forget the whole thing. After all, a great many writers have been trying to steal him from me for 15 years and they have never done it yet"
Publication year: 1957
Vendor: Houle Rare Books/Autographs/ABAA/PADA
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