Raymond Chandler is known for his hardboiled cynical gumshoe Philip Marlowe. So it was a contrast that he was educated in a top English public school.
He worked for the British civil service, later became a journalist in England. Later he saw service in the first world war serving for the Canadian army.
Moving to his native America, he became an accountant and later vice president of the Dabney Oil Syndicate.
When he was fired for being drunk. In the depression era of the 1930s, Chandler aged 45, took up writing once again.
By now he had a wife to support, Cissie who was 18 years his senior.
Chandler turned to pulp fiction but this Omnibus documentary made 10 years after his death. Treats Chandler's work as art not pulp. It traces the origins of his best known character Philip Marlowe with dramatised excerpts from his work.
It contrasts the tough masculine writing with a more genteel life with Cissie in La Jolla in southern California with his wife Cissie. His life spiralled after her death with loneliness and a return to alcoholism.
It was notable so early after his death, Chandler's work was regarded as art and quickly reappraised. In an interview author JB Priestley was rightly sniffy about Chandler's plotting. He more than made it up for it in scene setting.
