FilmNewYork

The New York Film Festival, which is in full swing following a busy weekend of films and premieres, will be presenting a number of special presentations in the days ahead. One of the more intriguing takes place this Wednesday evening.

Chandleresque: Raymond Chandler on Film and Television is an illustrated lecture by Film London CEO and former London Film Festival topper Adrian Wootton. Raymond Chandler, who is oddly more revered in Europe than in his native America, is the most famous and influential crime writer to come out of America of the 1920s and 1930s. He began writing pulp fiction short stories, as a middle-aged man, in the late 1930s in a bid to gain both increased credibility and earn more money. By reworking and stitching the tales together into novels, starting with The Big Sleep in 1939, his stories of sex, brutality and femme fatales became fodder for Hollywood thrillers and melodramas.

Starting in 1942 with his screenplay for THE FALCON TAKES OVER (based on his pulp novel, Farewell My Lovely), Chandler was second only to Dashiell Hammett in the adaptation of his steamy scenarios into Hollywood gloss. He penned such classic screenplays as Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), Edward Dmytrk's FAREWELL MY SWEET (1944), Howark Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP (1946) and Alfred Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951).

Hollywood had an appetite for his brand of contemporary, hard-edged drama and the adaptation of his own novels and the screenplays he did for hire have become certifiable classics that continue to enthrall and intrigue audiences. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Chandler's death in 1959, Adrian Wootton, will present an illustrated talk, featuring film/audio clips, chronicling Chandler's extraordinary life and career.

An added bonus will be the rare big screen presentation of THE BLUE DAHLIA (1946), Chandler's first original screenplay, directed by George Marshall. Alan Ladd became a sensation playing a returning World War II veteran who comes back to his hometown of Hollywood, California after serving together in the Pacific. Intending to surprise his wife, it is he who is surprised, when he finds his wife brutally murdered....and he becomes the police's main suspect for the crime. The film had a very modern sensibility, with aa tranquil beauty that is soon revealed to be a thin cover for a festering pool of treachery and corruption. For more information on this and other programs at the Festival, visit: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyff.html

Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor