WEIRDLAND: The Myth of Raymond Chandler's "unsolved" murder in The Big Sleep (1946)

Monday, August 19, 2024

The Myth of Raymond Chandler's "unsolved" murder in The Big Sleep (1946)

Every time The Big Sleep is mentioned one of the biggest myths of the story tends to also be mentioned: That Chandler wrote such a convoluted story that one of the character’s murders (Owen Taylor, the Sternwood’s chauffeur) is never explained. Not so. This is the relevant passage from The Big Sleep novel, where detective Phillip Marlowe is brought in as the Sternwood’s chauffeur has been found dead: "The plainclothesman scuffed at the deck with the toe of his shoe. Ohls looked sideways along his eyes at me, and twitched his cigar like a cigarette. ”Drunk?” he asked, of nobody in particular. The man who had been toweling his head went over to the rail and cleared his throat in a loud hawk that made everybody look at him. “Got some sand,” he said, and spat. “Not as much as the boyfriend got—but some.” The uniformed man said: “Could have been drunk. Showing off all alone in the rain. Drunks will do anything.” ”Drunk, hell,” the plainclothesman said. “The hand throttle’s set halfway down and the guy’s been sapped on the side of the head. Ask me and I’ll call it murder.” Ohls looked at the man with the towel. “What do you think, Buddy?” The man with the towel looked flattered. He grinned. “I say suicide, Mac. None of my business, but you ask me, I say suicide. First off the guy plowed an awful straight furrow down that pier. You can read his tread marks all the way nearly. That puts it after the rain like the Sheriff said. Then he hit the pier hard and clean or he don’t go through and land right side up. More likely turned over a couple of times. So he had plenty of speed and hit the rail square. That’s more than half-throttle.”

So, in a few paragraphs, Chandler offers three theories as to what happened to the chauffeur: 1) He was drunk and ran off the pier. 2) He was murdered, hit on the side of his head and the car run off the pier with him in it to make it look like an accident. Finally, 3) He committed suicide. The first explanation, that he was drunk, is quickly debunked. He “plowed an awful straight furrow down the pier” and this shows someone who was in control of the car until it smashed through the pier and into the water. The second explanation is also discarded because not only did the car “plow an awful straight furrow,” but also the car was moving very fast. So fast that it was the only way it could smash through that pier and land “right side up.” Thus Chandler clearly offers the third explanation, that the chauffeur committed suicide, as the one that makes the most logical sense. The car was going very fast (and straight!) to the end of the pier and had to ram through it to hit the water upright so someone was driving the car through but if there was a murderer inside the car that seems awfully dangerous to do at night. They couldn’t “jump out” before hitting the pier because they could injure themselves. Further, smashing through the pier and landing in the water before “swimming away” was also an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Therefore the most logical explanation is the third one and clearly that’s the one Chandler was going for. 

Further, suicide makes sense as we find the chauffeur was in love with Carmen Sternwood and attempted to help her because she was being blackmailed. His help wound up being for naught and it made sense he was despondent and did himself in. The bump on Owen’s head is also explained later in the novel: Brody confronted Owen and “sapped” him but he swore he left him alive. This makes sense as Brody got what he wanted and had no real reason to kill Owen. Now many people are curious why this story has had such traction. I suppose it’s a fascinating thing to say that an author created such a “complex story” that he somehow forgot to explain away one of the deaths within it but considering how easy it is to verify this by going to the novel itself and seeing the relevant passage it must have been more than that. Raymond Chandler was dismissively viewed around Hollywood at the time. While he was a great writer, he was also a difficult person to work with, especially because he was snarky and a heavy drinker. So we souldn’t be shocked if this story kept making the rounds as a way to insult Chandler, to say “hey Mr. Brilliant writer... you couldn’t figure out one of the deaths in your very own story! What a bozo!”

As for Chandler supposedly stating he “didn’t know” who killed Owen Taylor when asked by the studios… We have yet to see any concrete evidence or printed interview where Chandler or anyone of the crew involved in the making of The Big Sleep who stated this is what actually happened. We only have read vague stories about people “overhearing” Chandler say he didn't know, of Chandler writing the studios a letter when asked about the chauffeur's death and saying he “had no idea,” and how others “discovered” this element but it all feels really like tall tales. Another possibility is that Chandler’s response was just a snarky way of shading the film version of Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep. The movie made some important changes from the novel and perhaps when Chandler said he “had no idea” (if indeed he said this) about Owen’s death he was shading the film version rather than his novel. 

Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet and Hawks' The Big Sleep not only simplify Chandler's novels but also defuse Chandler's social critique, transforming plot and adapting characters when not eliminating them outright. Chandler was very critical of other writers. For example, he lamented Hemingway’s poor performance in the late 1940s. James M. Cain, the author of the novel Double Indemnity that Chandler adapted for the screen, was akin to a pornographer. Chandler did, however, praise some writers such as Somerset Maugham, who set the gold standard for spy novels. And he was particularly admiring of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald and Chandler make an interesting comparison. Although Fitzgerald had a much more rosey-eyed view than Chandler, both were capable of poetic atmosphere. Toward the end of his life, Chandler came to feel that L.A. had become a grotesque and impossible place to live. It was a “jittering city,” sometimes dull, sometimes brilliant, but always depressing to him. In his later years, Chandler commented that he felt L.A. had completely changed in the years since he’d arrived. Even the weather was different. “Los Angeles was hot and dry when I first went there,” he said, “with tropical rains in the winter and sunshine at least nine-tenths of the year. Now it is humid, hot, sticky, and when the smog comes down into the bowl between the mountains which is Los Angeles, it is damned near intolerable.” Source: www.judithfreemanbooks.com

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