Raymond Chandler: A BBC Radio Collection: Starring Ed Bishop as Philip Marlowe

Raymond Chandler

Mar 2020 · BBC Digital Audio · Narrated by Don Fellows, Ed Bishop, Full Cast, and Robert Beatty

About this audiobook

They never came tougher than Marlowe, a cynical, world-weary, wise-cracking shamus whose honesty in a dishonest world sent him down the mean streets again and again in search of some kind of justice.

Ed Bishop stars as Philip Marlowe in these powerfully atmospheric BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Raymond Chandler's novels.

The Big Sleep
General Sternwood's daughters came in both the colours of trouble - blonde and brunette - and they had all the usual vices. With four million dollars behind them, blackmail was only a matter of time. And blackmail can be murder.

The High Window
Linda Conquest was very tough, very kissable and very missing, along with one very valuable old coin. But soon Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead.

The Lady in the Lake
Blonde, beautiful and wild, Crystal Kingsley had never been the faithful little wife. But when she goes missing for a month, and then a woman’s body surfaces in an isolated mountain lake, murder-a-day Marlowe is back in business.

The Little Sister
Marlowe is on the case of a missing brother from a two-bit Kansas town, who had the embarrassing habit of knowing guys who finished up on the wrong end of an ice-pick. Until, that is, he did too.

The Long Goodbye
Terry Lennox seemed like a nice guy. Okay, he was a drunk but maybe that could happen to anyone with too much money, too much time and a wife who played the field in a big way. Trouble was, when she ended up dead, it wasn't money that got Lennox to Mexico. It was Marlowe.

Farewell My Lovely
At six feet five, Moose Malloy is a big man who looks about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food – and about as dangerous. His girl Velma disappeared eight years ago, and now he wants to find her.

Also included in a BBC Radio archive discussion, in which Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming discuss thrillers and talk about their respective heroes: Philip Marlowe and James Bond.

Originally broadcast between 1977 and 1988, these dramatisations also star Don Fellows and Robert Beatty. They were adapted by Bill Morrison and produced by John Tydeman.

These are archive dramatisations of the original novels published between 1939 and 1953, and the language used reflects some of the attitudes of those times.

Ratings and reviews

Ed Bishop is good as Marlow. they have messed the sound up badly its difficult to make out what's being said by the other characters. So bad I reqested a refund and got no where! Don't think I will be buying anymore audiobooks from playstore from now on.

A collection of gems. Raymond Chandler is credited with the introduction of a higher level of literacy and humour into the pulp fiction genre. These plays capture the atmosphere of the books as no other; Ed Bishop is superlative in this role. Prepare to be entranced.

Cool, retro, atmospheric and crisp. This is not casual listening, you have to pay attention to every name and plot twist. Better than Gould (not difficult), Mitchum and even Bogart, Ed Bishop is the best Marlowe. Perhaps the femmes fatales do not come close to Bacall - who can? - but there are delightful female performances of banality, calculation and evil. Pour yourself a big one, turn the lights down, relax on the couch, and prepare to lose yourself in 90 minutes of perfect noir.

About the author

Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 but moved to England with his mother when he was twelve after his parents' divorce. He was educated at Dulwich College, London and studied international law in France and Germany. He published a number of poems and essays in local papers and worked as a reporter, essayist and book reviewer before emigrating to the United States in 1912. After serving for the Canadian Army during the First World War he tried a variety of jobs before becoming a bookkeeper and auditor for Dabney Oil Syndicate. In 1924 he married Cissy Pascal. When Chandler lost his job during the Great Depression, he decided to devote himself to writing. He began writing short stories for Black Mask Magazine, the best known of the 'hard-boiled' school of pulp fiction magazines. In 1939 he published his first novel The Big Sleep to instant acclaim in Britain and the US, introducing the world to his iconic private eye, Philip Marlowe. Marlowe went on to star in almost all of Raymond Chandler's major works and with Farewell My Lovely (1940) and The Long Goodbye (1954) Chandler cemented his reputation as a giant of American popular culture and master of a style of detective fiction that would be widely admired and imitated. Chandler turned to screenwriting in 1943 with Double Indemnity and worked closely with director Billy Wilder. He continued to write for Hollywood for the next four years, during the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, receiving an Oscar nomination for The Blue Dahlia (1946). In 1946 Chandler received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for screenplay and in 1954 for novel writing. During the last year of his life he was made President of the Mystery Writers of America. He died from pneumonia in 1959.