Raymond Chandler in Hollywood

Four years after writing his first novel, The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler found himself sitting in an office at Paramount Studios earning a weekly salary that amounted to almost half of what he had received for the film rights to his second novel, Farewell My Lovely.  Despite the considerable rewards, he was always uncertain, often disgruntled, never at ease.


Raymond Chandler in Hollywood is an entertaining and comprehensive assessment of Chandler’s turbulent association with Hollywood, both as a screenwriter whose credits included Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia, and Strangers on a Train and as the provider of source material—his six filmed novels have so far yielded ten movies.


The author’s extensive research included interviewing many of the Hollywood figures who were associated with Chandler and his films, including Lauren Bacall, Edward Dmytryk, Alfred Hitchcock, John Houseman, Fred MacMurray, and Audrey Totter.


Illustrated with rare stills, posters, and location photographs, this book provides a special insight into the work of the world’s most acclaimed writer of detective fiction.


Al Clark has worked as a journalist for Time Out, as publicity director of Virgin Records, as founder and editor of The Film Yearbook, and, since 1983, as a film producer.  Among his credits as co-producer are Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Aria; as executive producer, Absolute Beginners and Gothic; and as producer, The Adventures of Pricilla, Queen of the Desert.  He is the author of Making Priscilla.