Raymond Chandler was an oil executive until the Depression put an end to his business career and forced him to return to his first love, writing. He polished his craft writing short stories for mystery magazines, including the legendary Black Mask Magazine in the '30s, where he introduced private eye Philip Marlowe in "Killer in the Rain." That story evolved into Chandler's first novel The Big Sleep, in 1939. Farewell, My Lovely, his second novel, appeared in 1940, but only sold about 2,900 copies.

RKO bought the rights to Farewell, My Lovely for just $2,000 because they needed material for their series of B-films about the society sleuth "The Falcon." They used the plot in the 1942 The Falcon Takes Over. In that version, George Sanders played detective (though as Gay Falcon rather than Philip Marlowe), with Ward Bond as Moose, Helen Gilbert as Velma and Turhan Bey as the phony psychic Amthor.

During World War II, sales of Chandler's books started to improve. By the end of the '40s, he estimated that Farewell, My Lovely had sold half a million copies.

Writer-turned-producer Adrian Scott came across the novel in RKO's files and thought a faithful film version would boost his career. Since the earlier version had made substantial changes and, in his opinion, left out the novel's best material, he had no qualms about asking for a re-make so soon after the earlier film. In fact, he sold the idea to RKO management by noting that they could film the novel almost exactly as written, thereby saving the costs of having a screenplay commissioned.

To work on the screenplay, Scott enlisted writer John Paxton, a former reporter and publicist he had known in New York. Director Edward Dmytryk had scored a big hit with RKO's low-budget Hitler's Children (1943) and was ready for a move into A-pictures.

Scott suggested writing the film as an extended flashback with Marlowe narrating, thereby maintaining the novel's first-person narrative.

The major change from the novel was in the creation of the Ann Grayle character. Originally, Ann was the daughter of an honest cop. Making her the femme fatale's stepdaughter gave the character more edge and made it clearer that, in true film noir tradition, the good and bad women were different sides of the same coin.

Another change Scott and screenwriter John Paxton made from the novel was the race of the murdered bar owner. In the original novel, he was black, which accounted for the police's derelict investigation of the crime. Making him white meant his scenes would not have to be cut in Southern states and also attributed the police's lack of interest in the crime to overall corruption rather than racism.

RKO president Charles Koerner took a chance on the production by giving Scott and Dmytryk a larger than usual budget - $400,000 - for this type of movie.

As they shaped the property, Scott and Dmytryk dreamed of casting Warner Bros. tough guy John Garfield as Marlowe.

With his career as a singer in musicals fading, Dick Powell was desperate for a change of image. He had signed with Paramount to star in the Preston Sturges comedy Christmas in July (1940), but the studio then stuck him in a series of increasingly threadbare musicals. When Paramount announced plans to film Double Indemnity (1944), with Chandler working on the screenplay, Powell campaigned to play the crooked insurance investigator, but director-writer Billy Wilder cast Fred MacMurray, another screen lightweight in need of a stronger image. Wilder thought he could get audiences past MacMurray's light comic image, but didn't think they would accept a singer like Powell in the tough-guy role

Koerner wanted to sign Powell for a string of musicals at RKO, but the former singer refused to come on board unless he got to play Philip Marlowe first. Inspired by MacMurray's success in Double Indemnity, Koerner agreed.

Tired with their typecasting as the bad girl and good girl, respectively, leading ladies Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley campaigned to switch roles, to no avail. As a consolation prize, Shirley demanded that her heiress character at least get to wear a mink coat, a bit of glamour missing from her usual run of working-class characters.

by Frank Miller