Jim wrote:
"Chandler never actually said that Grant would be the best
Marlowe. He said that Grant was the actor who looked most
like Chandler's visual image of the character, which isn't
quite the same thing."
I can definitely see your reading of Chandler's statement,
but I take
"If I ever had an opportunity of selecting the movie actor
who could best represent him to my mind, I think it would
have been Cary Grant" to mean more than just looks. Although
it does appear in the middle of a paragraph about Marlowe's
physical description, it directly follows a remark about
Marlowe's toughness (in Raymond Chandler Speakng, p.
228).
"However much he may have preferred Powell, however, he was
also very pleased with Bogart's performance, saying that he
seemed genuinely tough, not merely an actor pretending to be
tough."
I love the way he put it: "Bogart can be tough without a gun"
(pp. 216-217).
"Personally, much as I love both *The Big Sleep* and Bogart's
performance in it, I also prefer Powell and *Murder, My
Sweet*."
I've got to agree with you here. And for the same reasons,
Murder My Sweet is a Chandler film (the best in my book), Big
Sleep is a Bogart film. Both are very good things, but
different.
Mark
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