Raymond Chandler in Hollywood by Al Clark, ISBN 0862761107
PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED, DATED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR AT THE TOP OF THE FRONT FREE END PAPER THUS: "To Hemesh, with best regards. Al Clark March 1983."; 1982 1st UK hardback ed published by Proteus (Publishing) Limited, 160pp., text generally in decent order albeit with slight browning to pages, some browning & staining to front end papers & to the following blank page, old erased pencil price just visible to the top right hand corner of the front free end paper, hinge showing through between pages 2 & 3 (but still firm), slight browning to the page extremities at the very top, side & bottom, spine very slightly cocked & boards very slightly warped, slight bumping & rubbing to board corners, to top, bottom & sides of boards & to top & bottom of spine, the dust jacket has some internal yellowing, some shelf wear including scuffing to top & bottom of spine (bottom has two minute tears) + corners (slight loss to front bottom right hand corner), front cover has some scuffing to the right hand edge, both front & rear have a number of scratches.
Al Clark (born in Corrales, Spain) is an Australian film producer. He is best known for his producer role on The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and his executive producer role on the film, Chopper. Clark is also the author of three books. This book, Raymond Chandler in Hollywood, provides an insight into the work of the writer of detective fiction and includes interviews with many of the Hollywood figures who were associated with Raymond Chandler and his films. Among them Clark interviewed Lauren Bacall, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred MacMurray and Robert Montgomery.
Clark first worked as a journalist at Time Out in London before becoming Publicity Director at Virgin Records. It was here that he represented the Sex Pistols, Phil Collins, Mike Oldfield and Tangerine Dream. His working life in London from 1971 – 1987 was dominated by Tony Elliott, founder, publisher and editor of Time Out magazine UK and Richard Branson, Founder at Virgin Group. Over his time with Virgin and during the early years when the company expanded into different fields, Clark worked as a Publicity Director, a Book Editor for Virgin Books, Virgin's first Head of Creative Affairs and Head of Production for Virgin Films. Oscar winner, A Shocking Accident, starring Rupert Everett and Jenny Seagrove was made in association with Virgin Films. Clark's first six films produced under the Virgin umbrella include: Nineteen Eighty-Four directed by Michael Radford and starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, Absolute Beginners directed by Julien Temple and starring David Bowie and James Fox and Gothic directed by Ken Russell and starring Gabriel Byrne, Natasha Richardson and Timothy Spall.
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of 44, 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 (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). 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. Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe. At least three of Chandler's novels have been regarded as masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Four of his novels appear on the British-based Crime Writers Association Poll (1990) of the best 100 crime fiction novels ever published.
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