Those interested and curious enough to make their own minds up can read the complete screenplay, dated 1949, over at the Daily Script website.
The script, which would not have featured Marlowe and was set in Canada, is rated by Chandler’s biographer Frank MacShane as being better than The Blue Dahlia (1946), Chandler’s only original screenplay to make it into production. In fact the novel had its roots in an original screenplay of the same name written between 19 but never produced as the studio that paid handsomely for it (to the tune of $4,000 a week) was then in the process of merging with another due to financial difficulties. Playback (1958), Raymond Chandler’s final completed novel, is generally agreed to be the least of his works, with its slender plot and small cast of characters but on the other hand this works to its advantage in the broadcast medium as discussed in the review of the recent BBC radio version over at Audio Aficionado. Christie it should be noted employed a particularly ingenious solution to try to bypass this problem as the novel had in fact been written over 30 years earlier – certainly, if one compares it with the final books she completed, such as Elephants Can Remember (the actual final Poirot book) or Postern of Fate, the contrast is very stark indeed so as to make one even more grateful for her foresight. Certainly one wouldn’t want to remember Lord Peter Wimsey only through Busman’s Honeymoon or Albert Campion in The Mind Readers or John Dickson Carr for The Hungry Goblin, to name just a few. Some detectives get go out in a blaze of glory like Poirot in Agatha Christie’s near-posthumous Curtain or Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse in The Remorseful Day more often than not though the law of diminishing returns has set in long before their final farewell. They are just a fast curtain to a bad second act.” So, 2 down and at least 14 more to go with Raymond Chandler’s Playback (1958).
There are several challenge levels to commit to and one can of course change as it progresses – I will attempt to read 16+ eligible books before the year is out. Over at My Reader’s Block Bev has started (and in fact already completed!) a year-long challenge for 2011 – to read a pre-determined number of classic detective stories of a pre-1960 vintage.
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