Los Angeles

Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler

     In writing detective novels, Raymond Chandler “had brought [Los Angeles] to life in literature, giving it a mythical aspect of which even its inhabitants were unaware” (Clark, 7). Having lived there for most of my life (however short) I completely agree. Los Angeles is known for many things (sunshine, glamour, money, surf) but when I imagine Los Angeles Crime, it is so much more romantic and “Hollywood” in my head that it is in real life. The image of this Los Angeles is almost completely based off of its depiction in the classic Hollywood studio sets and perhaps the most iconic Los Angeles movie sets are those designed based on the pictures painted by Raymond Chandler’s novels. I am not sure how others imagine this city in the early 20th century, as this topic is very subjective, but my favorite version of Los Angeles is in a shadowy black and white with lots of empty misty alleyways and dim streetlights: the perfect setting for Humphrey Bogart to walk down in trench coat and hat.

    Interestingly enough, Raymond Chandler’s specificity of the topography of the Los Angeles streets were intended to make a fiction as real as possible. Although the adventures of Philip Marlowe were envisioned and conceived, they were still set to mostly real streets and areas of Los Angeles. In Chandler’s Trouble is My Business, Arbogast’s office is on Sunset and Ivar, Harriet Huntress’s hotel is on North Sycamore, Jeeter’s Estate is in Bel Aire, and City Hall is on Spring Street (Chandler, 515). However, although I have seen these streets and these places, and definitely recognized them while reading, I still pictured them in a classic romanticized Hollywood way. Ironically, the writing practice intended for realism is what added to my idealism.

    Los Angeles in stories such as Trouble is My Business is transformed the “into a place of unnameable dangers, menacing shadows, and evil lurking in every door, that is, an exciting place” (Salzani, 170). This excitement that Chandler’s Los Angeles brings to the detective novel also explains why the adventures of Philip Marlowe translated so well to film. Like San Francisco added to the complicated deception in Hammett’s detective fiction, Los Angeles makes Chandler’s writing that much more edgy and exciting. Los Angeles and the residents within are portrayed as young, aggressive, confident, and bold. Chandler creates a “city setting of beauty and brashness” explaining “the hero who moves within it,” Philip Marlowe (Hamilton, 156). For the early twentieth century, Philip Marlowe was masculine, dashing, and still cool. His place on the Los Angeles streets reinforces his seductive yet aloof brand of heroism. Philip Marlowe’s relationship to the city may not complicate or create depth, but it definitely adds to his greatness, as he is everything treasured in Hollywood film (well… a classic Hollywood film. I’m not sure if Chandler’s misogyny or racism would be appreciated as much today). Los Angeles is a part of Philip Marlowe as much as Philip Marlowe is a part of LA. Perhaps the reason why my conception of classic Los Angeles is so romanticized is due in part because this city without the cynical yet romantic Philip Marlowe would just be incomplete.

     Because of the dominance of the Los Angeles film industry, “the idiosyncrasies both of the Los Angeles landscape and of its inhabitants are known to millions around the world who go to movies and watch television” (Ward and Silver, 1). It is interesting to note that as Raymond Chandler worked as a screen writer, he began to detest the city. Even “his mouthpiece Marlowe” began to reveal his disgust with Los Angeles in later stories (Clark, 154). How is it that a man that hated Los Angeles could shape one is its most representational characterizations? He painted Los Angeles into not only mean streets but incredibly thrilling streets. “Since the forties, practically every film about a private detective has appropriated something from Raymond Chandler in one way or another” and his idea of excitement and justice as laid out in his essay The Simple Art of Murder is what has basically defined film Noir (Clark, 16).

     If you hadn’t noticed, I love LA.