Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (Dramatised)

By: Raymond Chandler

Narrated by: Toby Stephens, Kelly Burke, Barbara Barnes, Madeleine Potter, Leah Brotherhood, Sam Dale, Sean Baker, Iain Batchelor, Henry Devas, Jude Akuwudike

A brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of a classic Raymond Chandler mystery featuring private eye, Philip Marlowe. Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood’s two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA’s seedy backstreets, Marlowe’s got his work cut out - and that’s before he stumbles over the first corpse...

©1939 Raymond Chandler Limited (a Chorion company) (P)2011 AudioGO Ltd

The Big Sleep Refers to Death--Now I Know

I bought this by accident thinking it was the novel. I thought—oh well, and listened to it anyway. It was a pleasant surprise—not bad at all. Characters are well demarcated and the actors charge their roles with vigor. (Let's face it, Chandler's dramatis personae are written as over-the-top.) It's uncensored old-time radio. The politically incorrect words are left in. The price is cheap so it's worth the dough. Ignore the naysayers who howl at the moon over what was left out from the book. Listen and enjoy.

Rather clicheed, not my cup of tea

This is a nice performance of a classic noir book, but unfortunately "noir" has been satirized and abused so often it's become a cliche for me. I'm sure it was terrific when it was originally written, but for me the abundance of imitators and satires have done it no favours over the years. I liked it, but it doesn't hold the punch it likely did originally.

like old time radio

THERE ARE A SERIES OF THESE DRAMATISED ADAPTATIONS OF CHANDLER'S BEST KNOWN WORKS, AND THIS - LIKE THE REST - IS A DELIGHTFUL LISTEN. IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THESE ARE DRAMATISATIONS OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL, WITH A FULL CAST PERFORMING VARIOUS ROLES THROUGHOUT THE PRODUCTION. LIKE LISTENING TO AN OLD TIME RADIO PRODUCTION, ONLY BETTER, BECAUSE THIS PRODUCTION NEVER LOSES THE ATMOSPHERE OF CHANDLER'S PROSE. BRAVO!

Better than the movie.

What did you love best about Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (Dramatised)?

It followed the original Chandler story. Performances were spot on.

Any additional comments?

Like all Chandler books, hard to put down.

WARNING: NOT THE COMPLETE NOVEL

This is a dramatization of the novel. They take the major parts and turned it into a sort of hour and a half soap opera. It's good acting and it captures the main plot points, but if you're looking for the entire novel The Big Sleep, this is not it. The full novel version is six hours long, narrated by Elliot Gould, and Audible doesn't carry it yet.

Good Drama

You could almost see everything in your mind! Good acting and vocalization done by all of the cast.

Too short to be good. Two actors annoyed me.

It’s a short story so plot and characters are not developed as well as I’m used to. Philip goes around asking many people questions. It was hard to keep track of the many characters. He solves two mysteries. In the end when I learned who killed someone, the motive was not clear to me. Also, I realized I did not know some of the other plot points and motives. Apparently my mind wandered at the wrong times. This audiobook was harder to follow than other audiobooks. I’m not sure why. It’s probably better if one reads it instead of listens to it.

This audiobook is the Dramatised version with many actors. Two actors annoyed me. Carmen is talking to Philip. In the text there is one statement that she giggled. But in the audiobook, the actress is giggling throughout the entire conversation. It felt forced and annoyed me. I think Carmen was giggling in every scene she was in, and I doubt the word giggle was written next to every line in the book. I also did not like the Philip Marlowe actor sniffing. I counted 10 sniffs, but there may have been more. I don’t think the author wrote “sniffs” in the text. These were actor interpretations. I did not like them.

There were two kissing scenes. Those were interesting sounds. I liked them.

Genre: PI mystery

this is a superficial dramatization of the plot. plots were his only weak suit. it leaves out every spark of his brilliance

missing is The word play, the poetry, the rhythm, the social commentary, and oh yeah, entire city of Los Angeles. his coulf be s grocers convention in Kansas. do yourself a favor stick with the more expensive brillisntly rendered full text versions.