Monday, July 23, 2018

“Are You Mr. Marlowe, the Detective?”

Continuing our Raymond Chandler birthday theme, I’ve embedded below what is described as a clip from the pilot for Philip Marlowe, a 1959-1960 ABC-TV series about which I have written before. According to Mystery*File, this pilot—with Philip Carey in the title role—was completed in February 1958, though the series didn’t debut until the fall of ’59. What’s more, it’s not clear whether this pilot was ever broadcast; the first known, half-hour episode of Philip Marlowe, “The Ugly Duckling,” is completely different, and can be watched here.



READ MORE:The Reading Life: Happy Birthday to Me—and Raymond Chandler,” by Carolyn Kellogg (Los Angeles Times); “In Honor of Raymond Chandler’s Birthday: Chandler-Inspired Recipes,” by Colleen Collins (The Zen Man).

1 comment:

michael said...

It was a show that featured a great deal of behind the scene drama. Be sure to read the comments at the Mystery*File review linked here. So good stuff including Ed Hurley commenting about the original pilot.

William Froug has written and talked about his work on the show. Froug had hired a group of writers to write for the series. The series was produced by Goodson-Todman. Mark Goodson hated the scripts (not violent enough reportedly) and had a falling out with Froug. Goodson fired Froug and dumped all the writers.

Gene Wang (PERRY MASON) was brought in with a new group of writers and did all the episodes (but the first) that made it to the air.