Etienne Borgers (freeweb@rocketmail.com)
Wed, 20 Oct 1999 23:22:48 -0700 (PDT)
Last week I took the volume of Chandler's letters looking for
some references. This book having the same effect on me as
browsing a dictionary or an encyclopedia, I was finally
reading something else that what I was looking for. In the
same page, my attention was caught by a writer's name:
Huggins. And, reading the letter further he appeared to be
the writer discussed here in a recent thread. His novel:
DOUBLE TAKE is cited.
The comments of Chandler: he thinks the writer was a little
too much inspired by Chandler's work. This was done in a
rather soft tone, so maybe we could suspect that Chandler's
remark was partly made tongue in cheek
(?).
QUOTE: In writing to thank him (N: Huggins sent a signed copy
of his book to RC, explaining his inspiration)I said his
apologies were unnecessary or inadequate and that I could
name 3 or 4 writers who has gone as far as he had, without
his frankness about it.
/..... Somebody who read Huggins' book told me it was full of
scenes which were modeled in detail on scenes in my books,
just moved over enough to get by. I didn't seem to notice it
myself. Another party, whom I don't care to name on paper
even writing to you (=Cleve Adams), told me that when the
script of DOUBLE TAKE was submitted, the publisher told
Huggins, in effect, that it was bad enough to steal my
approach and my method or whatever, but stealing my
characters was going a little too far I understand there was
some rewriting, but cannot vouch for any of this.
/.....
UNQUOTE
This is only part of Chandler's comments and I'm not a good
typist! For those interested, the letter is dated: 4 Sept
1948 addressed to Cleve Adams (contributor to famed 'Black
Mask') I myself have no opinion, not recalling having red
Huggins' book, but I thought it could be interesting as it
probably explains Huggins' early influences.
Going on on the same subject in the same letter, Chandler had
a less tender opinion about 'No Orchids for Mrs Blandish' by
James Hadley Chase, whom he openly accuses to steal
"verbatim" passages from his own works, and from others like
Latimer and Hammett.... The letter gives also some Chandler's
views about plagiarism.
As I recall, Chandler was generally very critical of writers'
novels, was it in the mystery genre or in general
literature.
E.Borgers Hard-boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
--- Kevin Burton Smith <kvnsmith@colba.net>
wrote:
[HEAVILY SNIPPED]
>
> . In fact, I'm working on a mini-bio and
> bibliography for my
> site, because, like it or not, he did much to
bring
> the P.I. form to
> television
>
> And THE DOUBLE TAKE still stands out as some kind
of
> classic of its
> kind. Had the studios kept their paws off it,
and
> trusted Huggins a
> bit more, 77 SUNSET STRIP would have been a
much
> better show.
> (Really, lend me your comb?)
> Kevin Burton Smith
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