 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Raymond Chandler |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Philip Marlowe |
| Genre | Detective, Crime, Novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | 1942 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 240 pp |
| Preceded by | Farewell, My Lovely |
| Followed by | The Lady in the Lake |
The High Window is a 1942 novel written by Raymond Chandler. It is his third novel featuring the Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe.
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy widow Elizabeth Bright Murdock to recover a missing Brasher Doubloon, a rare and valuable coin. Mrs. Murdock suspects it was stolen by her son's estranged wife, Linda Conquest, a former singer. Returning to his office, Marlowe is followed by a blond man in a coupe. Mrs. Murdock's son Leslie Murdock visits Marlowe and tries to learn why his mother hired him. Murdock reveals that he owes nightclub owner Alex Morny a large sum of money. Marlowe learns that Linda Conquest had two friends: Lois Magic and a Mr. Vannier; Magic is now married to Morny. Marlowe visits Mrs. Morny at home and finds her with Vannier, who acts suspiciously. Marlowe is again tailed by the blond in the coupe and confronts him. He is George Anson Phillips, an amateurish private detective, who wants to enlist Marlowe's help on a case he cannot handle. Marlowe agrees to meet him at his apartment later.
Marlowe visits a rare coin dealer, Mr. Morningstar, who confirms that someone tried to sell him a Brasher Doubloon. Marlowe agrees to buy it back the next day, and after leaving overhears the dealer trying to call Phillips. Marlowe keeps his appointment with Phillips but finds him dead. Police arrest the drunk next door for the murder and give Marlowe an ultimatum to reveal all he knows.
Marlowe receives an unaddressed package containing the coin. He calls Mrs. Murdock but she claims the coin has already been returned to her. Marlowe returns to the coin dealer and finds him dead. Alex Morny's henchman invites Marlowe to visit Morny at his nightclub, where Linda Conquest is singing. Morny demands to know why Marlowe visited his wife, but eventually realizes he is not Marlowe's quarry. Morny offers to hire Marlowe to investigate Vannier, giving him a suspicious receipt for dentistry chemicals that Vannier lost. Marlowe also talks to Linda and decides she is probably not involved in the theft.
Returning to the Murdocks, Marlowe is told a story he doesn’t believe: Leslie Murdock gave the coin to Morny to secure his debts, then changed his mind and retrieved it. Marlowe leaves, beginning to suspect a dark secret involving Merle, the timid family secretary, and Mrs. Murdock's first husband, Horace Bright, who died falling out of a window. The police say the drunk has confessed to the murder of Phillips, but Marlowe discovers he is covering for his landlord and is unlikely to be the real murderer.
Merle arrives at Marlowe's apartment having a nervous breakdown. She claims to have shot Vannier, although her story doesn’t make sense. Marlowe visits Vannier's home, finds him dead, and discovers a photo of a man falling from a window with a woman behind him. Morny and Magic arrive, and Marlowe hides while Morny tricks his wife into leaving her fingerprints on the gun near the body to incriminate her. After they leave Marlowe puts the dead man's prints on the gun instead.
Marlowe visits Mrs. Murdock and tells her he has figured out that Horace Bright once tried to force himself on Merle, and she either pushed him or allowed him to fall out of a window to his death. Vannier knew and was blackmailing the family. Mrs. Murdock says Marlowe is right and that she regrets ever hiring him. Marlowe confronts Leslie Murdock, revealing that he knew Murdock and Vannier had a plot to duplicate the coin using dental technology. They had Lois Magic hire Phillips to sell the fakes, but Phillips was frightened by the assignment and mailed the coin to Marlowe. Vannier killed Phillips and the coin dealer to cover his tracks. Leslie killed Vannier because he threatened to ruin Leslie if their scheme ever got out. Leslie confirms the plot, but Marlowe declines to turn him in. The police discover Vannier's role in the counterfeiting and the murders of Phillips and the coin dealer, but they rule his death a suicide.
Marlowe shows Merle the photograph of Horace Bright being pushed out the window, which shows it was actually Mrs. Murdock who killed her husband and then blamed Merle for it. Marlowe drives her cross country, to the home of her parents, safely away from Mrs. Murdock. He watches her and her family as he drives away and says, "I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again". [1]
One of the themes of Chandler's novels that differentiate Philip Marlowe from his hardboiled colleagues is that in spite of his cynicism, Marlowe exhibits the idealism of a Romantic hero. [2] [3] Nowhere is this more evident than in The High Window, in which Marlowe rescues a damsel in distress in the form of Merle. Chandler hints at the theme of Marlowe as a romantic knight in the language he uses in the novel to describe Marlowe, such as "shop-soiled Sir Galahad". [4]
Chandler often wrote about corruption in high places. The "Cassidy Case", which Marlowe relates to Breeze in chapter 15, [5] is actually a retelling of the real-life murder in Los Angeles of Ned Doheny, son of oil tycoon Edward Doheny. [6]
Two film adaptations of the novel have been made:
Two radio adaptations of the novel have been made, as well:
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime. All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.
The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles.
Philip Marlowe is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The genre originated in the 1920s, notably in Black Mask magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Continental Op and Sam Spade first appeared. Marlowe first appeared under that name in The Big Sleep, published in 1939. Chandler's early short stories, published in pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective, featured similar characters with names like "Carmady" and "John Dalmas", starting in 1933.
Farewell, My Lovely is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1940, the second novel he wrote featuring the Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times and was also adapted for the stage and radio.
The Long Good-bye is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1953, his sixth novel featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. Some critics consider it inferior to The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, but others rank it as the best of his work. Chandler, in a letter to a friend, called the novel "my best book".
Lady in the Lake is a 1947 American film noir starring Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully, Leon Ames and Jayne Meadows. An adaptation of the 1943 Raymond Chandler murder mystery The Lady in the Lake, the picture was also Montgomery's directorial debut, and last in either capacity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) after eighteen years with the studio.
Murder, My Sweet is a 1944 American film noir, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley. The film is based on Raymond Chandler's 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely. It was the first film to feature Chandler's primary character, the hard-boiled private detective Philip Marlowe.
The Lady in the Lake is a 1943 detective novel by Raymond Chandler featuring the Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe. Notable for its removal of Marlowe from his usual Los Angeles environs for much of the book, the novel's complicated plot initially deals with the case of a missing woman in a small mountain town some 80 miles (130 km) from the city. The book was written shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and makes several references to America's recent involvement in World War II.
Playback is a novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe. It was first published in Britain in July 1958; the US edition followed in October that year. Chandler died the following year; Playback is his last completed novel.
The Big Sleep is a 1946 American film noir directed by Howard Hawks, the first film version of the 1939 novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler. The film stars Humphrey Bogart as private detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge in a story about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its results". William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman co-wrote the screenplay.
The Big Sleep is a 1978 neo-noir film, the second film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. The picture was directed by Michael Winner and stars Robert Mitchum in his second film portrayal of the detective Philip Marlowe. The cast includes Sarah Miles, Candy Clark, Joan Collins, and Oliver Reed, also featuring James Stewart as General Sternwood.
The Little Sister is a 1949 novel by Raymond Chandler, his fifth featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. The story is set in Los Angeles in the late 1940s and follows Marlowe's investigation of a missing persons case and blackmail scheme centered around a Hollywood starlet. With several scenes involving the film industry, the novel was partly inspired by Chandler's experience working as a screenwriter in Hollywood and his low opinion of the industry and most of the people in it. The book was first published in the UK in June 1949 and was released in the United States three months later.
The Brasher Doubloon is a 1947 American crime film noir directed by John Brahm and starring George Montgomery and Nancy Guild. It is based on the 1942 novel The High Window by Raymond Chandler.
The Long Goodbye is a 1973 American neo-noir satirical mystery crime thriller film directed by Robert Altman and based on Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel. The screenplay was written by Leigh Brackett, who co-wrote the screenplay for Chandler's The Big Sleep in 1946. The film stars Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe and features Sterling Hayden, Nina Van Pallandt, Jim Bouton, Mark Rydell and an early uncredited appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Poodle Springs is the eighth Philip Marlowe novel. It was started in 1958 by Raymond Chandler, who left it unfinished at his death in 1959. The four chapters he had completed, which bore the working title The Poodle Springs Story, were subsequently published in Raymond Chandler Speaking (1962), a collection of excerpts from letters and unpublished writings. In 1988, on the occasion of the centenary of Chandler's birth, the crime writer Robert B. Parker was asked by the estate of Raymond Chandler to complete the novel.
Marlowe is a 1969 American neo-noir film starring James Garner as Raymond Chandler's private detective Philip Marlowe. Directed by Paul Bogart, the film was written by Stirling Silliphant based on Chandler's 1949 novel The Little Sister.
The Brasher Doubloon is a rare American doubloon of eight escudos worth sixteen dollars, privately minted in and after 1787.
Farewell, My Lovely is a 1975 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Dick Richards and featuring Robert Mitchum as private detective Philip Marlowe. The picture is based on Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely (1940), which had previously been adapted for film as Murder, My Sweet in 1944. The supporting cast features Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Jack O'Halloran, Sylvia Miles and Harry Dean Stanton, with an early screen appearance by Sylvester Stallone, and hardcore crime novelist Jim Thompson, in his only acting role, as Charlotte Rampling's character's elderly husband Judge Grayle. Mitchum returned to the role of Marlowe three years later in the 1978 film The Big Sleep, making him the only actor to portray Philip Marlowe more than once in a feature film.
Time to Kill is an American mystery film directed by Herbert I. Leeds. It is the first screen adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel The High Window, which was remade five years later as The Brasher Doubloon. The detective was changed from Philip Marlowe to Michael Shayne for this version, with Lloyd Nolan playing the part and Heather Angel in a rare turn as leading lady. It is also the final Michael Shayne film starring Lloyd Nolan made at Fox, who closed down their popular B movie unit which included Mr. Moto, Charlie Chan, and the Cisco Kid. In 1946 the series would be reborn at Producers Releasing Corporation with Hugh Beaumont taking over the role.
Perchance to Dream is a detective crime novel by Robert B. Parker, written as an authorized sequel to The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Following his post-mortem collaboration with Chandler on Poodle Springs, this 1991 release is the second and final Philip Marlowe novel written by Parker.