The Driven to writing during the Great Depression to pay the bills, Raymond Chandler became a founding father of the hard-boiled school of crime fiction, and he gave the genre one of its most enduring characters, Philip Marlow, the tough, smart, and

philosophical private detective.

And today on down these main streets, we're saluting the author and his most famous character.

Chandler turned to writing after he lost his job as a vice president of the Dabney Oil Syndicate.

His first story was published in Black Mask magazine in 1933, and in 1939

his first novel was published. That novel, The Big Sleep, introduced the world to Philip Marlow, and Hollywood soon came calling after the novel's warm reception.

Even though Chandler's novels would hit the big screen in 1942, it would be

be a few more years before Marlow himself appeared in a movie.

The first screen adaptations of Raymond Chandler's novels were repurposed

for other detectives. The High Window was filmed as Time to Kill, a Michael

Shane adventure starring Lloyd Nolan. And Farewell My Lovely came to theaters as The Falcon Takes Over, an entry in the B movie franchise

starring George Sanders.

It wasn't until 1944's Murder My Sweet that Philip Marlow actually appeared on screen in one of his own stories.

It was the second film based on Farewell My Lovely, and both the film and star Dick Powell won rave reviews. Several Marlow films

followed, The Big Sleep in 1946 with Humphrey Bogart, The Brasher-Dablan, which was another adaptation of the high window in 1947 with George Montgomery, and also in 1947 Lady in the Lake with Robert Montgomery, no relation to George.

Riding the wave of popularity from the films, Philip Marlow first came to radio in 1947

as a summer replacement for Bob Hope on NBC.

Van Heflin starred as Marlow in the series that adapted several of Raymond Chandler's stories,

including Red Wind, Trouble is My Business, and The King in Yellow.

The series came to an end when Bob Hope returned from his summer hiatus,

and Van Heflin's film career ended his run as a radio detective. A year later, Marlow came back to the

airwaves in a new series on CBS. Gerald Moore played Marlow this time around, and Chandler himself was a fan of the portrayal.

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