Consider the archetype of the no-nonsense Private Detective in ‘hardboiled crime fiction’, and you will probably find yourself picturing the gruff, solitary man in the brown overcoat and hat, cautiously regarding any number of ‘femme fatales’ that slink into his dimly lit, bourbon-fragranced office. The reason you picture that man is Raymond Chandler – creator of the Phillip Marlowe character.
Chandler rose to popularity writing short stories for American pulp magazines in the early 1930s – cheaply produced fiction magazines that were prevalent between 1896 and the 1950s. He began by writing within this ‘hardboiled crime’ genre with a number of detective characters, but changed all their names retrospectively to Phillip Marlowe when he came to expand those stories into novels. His first full-length Phillip Marlowe book was The Big Sleep, published in 1939.
As with fellow private detective, Sherlock Holmes, Phillip Marlowe has cropped up across many forms of media, including television and radio. His first appearance in cinema, however, arrived in 1944 with Murder, My Sweet starring Dick Powell as Marlowe. The character has since been depicted by Humphrey Bogart, Robert Montgomery , George Montgomery, James Garner, Elliot Gould and Robert Mitchum. Many films have paid homage to the character as well, including the 2003 film version of The Singing Detective starring Robert Downey Jr, and Carl Reiner’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.