Down these mean streets a man must go

February 5, 2016 12:07 PM

Full cast radio adaptations of The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, The High Window, and three more Raymond Chandler mysteries. Starring Toby Stephens as Philip Marlowe.
posted by Iridic (32 comments total)

what

WHAAAAAAT


*chucks all plans for the weekend*
posted by Kitteh at 12:21 PM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

YESSSSSSSS
posted by Going To Maine at 12:27 PM on February 5, 2016

(To be clear, this is all seven of Chandler’s novels, plus an additional story.)
posted by Going To Maine at 12:28 PM on February 5, 2016

This is fabulous. Thanks so so much.
posted by OmieWise at 12:34 PM on February 5, 2016

Omg, omg....squeeee!!
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 12:44 PM on February 5, 2016

Nice. Realizing how long it's been since I read these, probably twenty five years now. The Long Goodbye is probably my favorite.
posted by octothorpe at 12:49 PM on February 5, 2016

sweet!
posted by thelonius at 12:51 PM on February 5, 2016

Oh, this is choice. Thank you so much.
posted by bearwife at 12:58 PM on February 5, 2016

Man, I wish I could drink enough Bourbon and smoke enough cigarettes to get that kind of husky voice. But the health consequences…
posted by Going To Maine at 12:59 PM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Um, why wasn't I told about this YEARS ago?! You guys are all on notice.
posted by Aznable at 1:00 PM on February 5, 2016

Oh hello! Fabulous!
posted by rmd1023 at 1:01 PM on February 5, 2016

Wow. What a great find.
posted by pipoquinha at 1:07 PM on February 5, 2016

Soooo, if someone hypothetically hasn't read any Chandler, should she read the novels first and then listen to these or should she just dive in?
posted by zix at 1:44 PM on February 5, 2016

Read the books first!
posted by Mo Nickels at 1:54 PM on February 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Soooo, if someone hypothetically hasn't read any Chandler, should she read the novels first and then listen to these or should she just dive in?

I’ve read the novels and I can’t even say what they’re all about. (Although The Little Sister’s villain really hit home for me) Do you like smokey-voiced dudes talking in old-timey film-noir language and saying beautiful things? Then go & listen.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:55 PM on February 5, 2016

A classic line from Wikipedia on The Big Sleep:

The Big Sleep is known for its convoluted plot. During filming, allegedly neither the director nor the screenwriters knew whether chauffeur Owen Taylor was murdered or had killed himself. They sent a cable to Chandler, who told a friend in a later letter: “They sent me a wire… asking me, and dammit I didn't know either”.

posted by Going To Maine at 1:56 PM on February 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Back in the beginning of the internet, I found some source to download all these old time radio dramas. I thought my mom, who waxes nostalgic at times would enjoy, so I burnt them to a CD. I don't think she ever listened to them, and somehow they haven't survived the multiple computers since then. All of these, Flash Gordon, The Shadow, The Thin Man etc. I'm going to see if I can find that in the Internet Archive or Smithsonian or somewhere. They would be fun to listen to as a break from rock and roll on my bike.
posted by sfts2 at 2:08 PM on February 5, 2016

Okay, these are the BBC ones. Just a warning: B-a-a-a-a-d american accents ahead.
posted by Trochanter at 2:22 PM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

These dramatizations are pretty solid (Toby Stephens does a stellar Marlowe), but they're also abridged; you miss out on a lot of what makes Chandler a top tier writer. Feels like they toned down the slang a bit too, which is understandable... a lot of it has gone by the wayside in sixty years and can be impenetrable without a glossary. Start with the books. The Simple Art of Murder is a good place to begin, short stories and an essay about detective fiction for the ages.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 2:22 PM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Chandler is one of my favorite writers, so I say read them first. And they read real easy, like a slug of 25 year-old whiskey going down smooth. Just don't get hung up on trying to understand what's going on, in either the books or the movies.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:50 PM on February 5, 2016

Oh man, nice find, Iridic.

The best description of The Long Goodbye, my favorite, came from another fictional character in a book (The Throat, by Peter Straub):

"What a poignant book, " she said. "The hero makes one friend, and by the end he can't stand him. The loneliness is so brutal that the most emotional passages are either about violence or bars."

posted by sidereal at 3:54 PM on February 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

"What a poignant book, " she said. "The hero makes one friend, and by the end he can't stand him. The loneliness is so brutal that the most emotional passages are either about violence or bars."

Also county jails.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:24 PM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had never heard of Poodle Springs although I fancy myself a bit of a Chandler aficionado. Well voice acted and produced. Thoroughly enjoyable. Can't wait to listen to the rest...
posted by jim in austin at 5:12 PM on February 5, 2016

I just listened to "The Big Sleep". Pretty good. Marlowe great, other actors with scary accents. Can't wait to listen to the other episodes. [Note: having read "The Big Sleep" AND seen the movie did not help me follow the plot this time, either].
posted by acrasis at 6:28 PM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Poodle Springs" was unfinished at Chandler's death.....
posted by acrasis at 6:37 PM on February 5, 2016

The Long Goodbye is a good antidote to romantic bullshit about alcoholism and writers. The other book I recommend to anyone showing signs of believing that drinking themself to death will put a knife edge on their heretofore slumbering genius is Kerouac's Big Sur, an honest portrayal of the grim endgame to his life.
posted by thelonius at 4:44 AM on February 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yesssssssssss, thanks.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 8:27 AM on February 6, 2016

And there's no real linguistic basis for this, but for me British folks doing somewhat marginal American accents works better for a 1940s California setting than it might if it were contemporary Americans attempting it!
posted by lefty lucky cat at 11:31 AM on February 6, 2016

A puzzle, for anyone who wants to crack it: Archive.org supports generic rss feeds for media collections. (The documentation.) In the comments of the sort-of-recent post about Over The Edge on archive.org, ardegee pointed out the RSS feed on the page of the archive, and later just straight up posted the working link.

Yet this collection of Chandler plays has no RSS icon, and I can’t seem to compose a working query to set up the feed. Any ideas? PHP pros?
posted by Going To Maine at 12:20 AM on February 7, 2016

Well, sometimes you have to make the podcast feed you want to see in the world. If you want the plays as a podcast, use this feed.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:27 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

(Oh yes - I reordered the plays to match the order of the novels, not the order in which the plays were produced.)
posted by Going To Maine at 2:09 PM on February 8, 2016

Here's the BBC Radio 4 documentary about Chandler that went with this series.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:17 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]