title: Creatures of Darkness: Raymond Chandler, Detective Fiction, and Film Noir
author:  Gene D. Phillips 
description: Welcome to the dark world of Raymond Chandler, film noir, and scholarship, where behind every corner lurks a plot synopsis blocking the organic growth of analysis.Once the obstacles of too much prefatory material (a Preface by Billy Wilder, a Prologue, an Introduction, and a brief biography of Chandler) have been overcome, the reader proceeds to Phillips's interpretations of the Chandler oeuvre in fiction, screenwriting, and film. Phillips proves his encyclopedic knowledge of noir as he analyzes, among many others, the three film versions of <I>Farewell, My Lovely</I> and the two film versions of <I>The Big Sleep</I> through extensive comparisons to Chandler's novels. Chandler despised Hollywood yet needed Tinseltown's lucre as a source of income, and Phillips is at his best as he describes how Chandler's screenplays, including <I>Double Indemnity</I> (directed by Billy Wilder) and <I>Strangers on a Train</I> (directed by Alfred Hitchcock), implicated him in torturous collaborations with the Hollywood elite. Such behind-the-scenes moments-for example, the different receptions Chandler found at MGM and Paramount, the drama of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Robert Montgomery's innovative camera technique in <I>Lady in the Lake</I>-are welcome and informative. Unfortunately, such moments can only be found after sifting through endless plot synopses in which Chandler's haunting tales are subjected to a sort of Cliff Notes summarizing. The analysis is also marred by a squeamishness on Phillips's part in dealing with the homoerotic subtones of many noir films. He goes to great lengths to exonerate Chandler and his characters from any such imputation, no matter that countless viewers see a little something more in some of the characters' relationships. The darkness of noir never fails to serve up a treacherous treat, so read or watch Chandler's originals rather than reading Phillips's summaries. (30 b&w photos) -- <I>Copyright &#169; 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</I>
zlib_text: ![](Images/cover00134.jpeg)
  
  **Praise for Derek Raymond’s**  
   **Factory Series**
  
  “There remains no finer writing—crime or otherwise—about the  
  state of Britain.”
  
   **—DAVID PEACE, AUTHOR OF** _ **THE RED RIDING QUARTET**_
  
  “More Chandleresque than Chandler. . . [Raymond] could write beautifully . . .
  and, more importantly, what he is writing about in this novel are nothing less
  than the most important subjects any writer can deal with: mortality and
  death.”  
   **—WILL SELF, AUTHOR OF** _ **THE QUANTITY THEORY OF INSANITY**_
  
  “A pioneer of British noir . . . No one has come near to matching his style or
  overwhelming sense of madness. . . he does not strive for accuracy, but
  achieves an emotional truth all his own.”  
  _**—THE TIMES**_ **(LONDON)**
  
  “The beautiful, ruthless simplicity of the Factory novels is that Raymond
  rewrites the basic ethos of the classic detective novel.”  
  **—CHARLES TAYLOR,** _ **THE NATION**_
  
  “A sulphurous mixture of ferocious violence and high-flown philoso