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James Hadley Chase

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James Hadley Chase
BornRené Lodge Brabazon Raymond
(1906-12-24)24 December 1906
London, England
Died6 February 1985(1985-02-06) (aged 78)
Corseaux-sur-Vevey, Switzerland
Pen nameJames L. Docherty
Raymond Marshall
R. Raymond
Ambrose Grant
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityBritish
GenreCrime fiction, mystery, thriller, detective
Literary movementGolden Age of Detective Fiction
SpouseSylvia Ray (1932–1985)
Children1
Signature
The signature of James Hadley Chase, reading "James Hadley Chase"

James Hadley Chase (24 December 1906 – 6 February 1985)[1] was an English writer. While his birth name was René Lodge Brabazon Raymond, he was well known by his various pseudonyms, including James Hadley Chase, James L. Docherty, Raymond Marshall, R. Raymond, and Ambrose Grant. He was one of the best known thriller writers of all time. The canon of Chase, comprising 90 titles, earned him a reputation as the king of thriller writers in Europe.[2] He was also one of the internationally best-selling authors, and to date 50 of his books have been made into films.[3]

Personal background

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Born on 24 December 1906 in London, England, he was the son of Colonel Francis Raymond of the colonial Indian Army, a veterinary surgeon. His father intended his son to have a scientific career and had him educated at King's School, Rochester, Kent.

Chase left home at the age of 18. In 1932, Chase married Sylvia Ray, and they had a son. In 1956, they moved to France. In 1969, they moved to Switzerland, living a secluded life in Corseaux-sur-Vevey, on Lake Geneva. Chase died there on 6 February 1985.

Professional background

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Military service

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During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force, achieving the rank of Squadron Leader. He edited the RAF journal with David Langdon and had several stories from it published after the war in the book Slipstream: A Royal Air Force Anthology.[4]

Writing background

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After Chase left home at the age of 18, he worked in sales, primarily focusing on books and literature. He sold children's encyclopaedias as well as working in a bookshop. He also served as an executive for a book wholesaler, before turning to a writing career that produced more than 90 mystery books. His interests included photography, of a professional standard, reading, and listening to classical music and opera. As a form of relaxation between novels, he put together highly complicated and sophisticated Meccano models.

Prohibition and the ensuing Great Depression in the US (1929–39) had given rise to the Chicago gangster culture prior to World War II. This, combined with Chase's book trade experience, convinced him that there was a big demand for gangster stories. After reading James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), and having read about the American gangster Ma Barker and her sons, and with the help of maps and a slang dictionary, he wrote No Orchids for Miss Blandish in his spare time, he claimed over a period of six weekends, though his papers suggest it took longer. The book achieved remarkable notoriety and became one of the best-selling books of the decade. It was the subject of the 1944 essay "Raffles and Miss Blandish" by George Orwell.[5][6] Chase and Robert Nesbitt adapted it to a stage play of the same name which ran in London's West End to good reviews.[5][7] The 1948 film adaptation was widely denounced as salacious due to the film's portrayal of violence and sexuality.[8] Robert Aldrich did a remake, The Grissom Gang, in 1971.

During the war, Raymond edited the RAF's official magazine and from that period comes Chase's short story "The Mirror in Room 22", in which he tried his hand outside the crime genre. It was set in an old house, occupied by officers of a squadron. The owner of the house had committed suicide in his bedroom, and the last two occupants of the room had been found with a razor in their hands and their throats cut. The Wing Commander tells that when he started to shave before the mirror, he found another face in it. The apparition drew the razor across his throat. The Wing Commander says, "I use a safety razor, otherwise, I might have met with a serious accident – especially if I had been using an old-fashioned cut-throat." The story was published under the author's real name, Rene Raymond, in the anthology of RAF writings Slipstream in 1946. In later collections, the story began to be published with his better known pseudonym James Hadley Chase.[9]

During World War II, Chase became friendly with Merrill Panitt (subsequently editor of TV Guide), who provided him with a dictionary of American slang, detailed maps and reference books of the American underworld. This gave Chase the background for his early books with American settings, a number of which were based on actual events occurring there. Chase never lived in the United States though he did make two brief visits, one to Miami and the other en route to Mexico.

Over the years, Chase developed a distinct, signature style in his writing that was fast-paced, with little explanations or details about the surroundings or weather, unreliable characters.[10] Characters in his novels and short stories would be more coherent and consistent who acted and reacted with unbreakable logic.[11] Punchy sentences, short bursts of dialogue in authentic sounding slang with plenty of action were the characteristics of his writing.[12]

Chase was subject to several court cases during his career. In 1942, his novel Miss Callaghan Comes to Grief (1941), a lurid account of the white slave trade, was banned by the British authorities after the author and publishers Jarrold were found guilty of causing the publication of an obscene book. Each was fined £100. In the court case, Chase was supported by literary figures such as H. E. Bates and John Betjeman. Later, the Anglo-American crime author Raymond Chandler successfully claimed that Chase had lifted a section of his work in Blonde's Requiem (published 1945) forcing Chase to issue an apology in The Bookseller.

By the end of World War II, eleven Chase titles had been published and he decided to adopt a different writing approach. All of his books to date had been compared to each other, and he wanted to move away from the American gangster scene to the London underworld that had sprung up following the end of German hostilities. He wrote More Deadly Than the Male under a new pseudonym, Ambrose Grant, and it was published in 1947 by Eyre and Spottiswoode, Graham Greene's publisher at that time. Alerted to Grant's new book, Greene gave it high praise as did the critics who, at the time, had no idea that Chase was the author. Contrary to rumour, the two authors did not know each other at the time, though they then became friends for the remainder of their lives, as Chase's papers and letters reveal. In the early 1960s, both men were caught up in an investment scandal involving Tom Roe which was to lead to Greene's tax exile beginning in 1966.

In one of the chapters of The Wary Transgressor (1952) Chase gave a portrayal of a fanatical British General that was lifted by Hans Hellmut Kirst in his novel The Night of the Generals (which later became a film starring Peter O'Toole in the title role). Chase (who had nothing whatsoever to do with the making of the film) threatened a lawsuit, and Kirst subsequently acknowledged Chase's original idea in his book, as did Columbia Pictures, who included a credit that the plot of the film stemmed from an original Chase idea.

The first cut of Joseph Losey's 1962 film version of Chase's thriller Eve (1945), Eva was considered too long, at 155 minutes, and the producers, the Hakim Brothers, insisted it not only be withdrawn from the Venice Film Festival, but be severely cut. When the film finally opened in Paris at 116 minutes, it was described as the most traumatic disaster of Losey's career.[13] The original book was a psychological study of a prostitute (Chase, with his wife's blessing, picked out a "lady of the night" and offered her £5 and a good lunch if she would let him pick her brains). Set in America, the film version was moved to Venice and starred Stanley Baker as a Welsh writer obsessed with a cold-hearted femme fatale, Eve (Jeanne Moreau).

All of his novels were so fast-paced that the reader was compelled to turn the pages in a non-stop effort to reach the end of the book. The final page often produced a totally unexpected plot twist that would invariably leave even his most die-hard fans surprised. His early books contained some violence that matched the era in which they were written, though this was considerably toned down as plots centred more on circumstantial situations to create the high degree of tension that was the hallmark of his writing. Sex was never explicit and, though often hinted at, seldom happened.

In several of Chase's stories, the protagonist tries to get rich by committing a crime – an insurance fraud or a theft. But the scheme invariably fails and leads to a murder and finally to a cul-de-sac, in which the hero realises that he never had a chance to keep out of trouble. Women are often beautiful, clever, and treacherous; they kill unhesitatingly if they have to cover a crime. His plots typically centre around dysfunctional families, and the final denouement echoes the title.

In many of his novels, treacherous women play a significant role. The protagonist falls in love with one and is prepared to kill someone at her behest. Only when he has killed, does he realise that the woman was manipulating him for her own ends.

Chase's best market was France (more than 30 books were made into movies) where all of his ninety titles were published by Éditions Gallimard in their Série noire series. He was also very popular in other European markets, as well as Africa and Asia. Following perestroika, Centrepolygraph in Russia contracted to publish all his titles. However, his books failed to take hold in the American market.

Mark Girland

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Just as Sherlock Holmes was the fictional detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle and James Bond by Ian Fleming, Mark Girland was created by Chase. Mark Girland is not the usual secret agent. He looks more like an unrefined version of James Bond. He is erratic and genial but also ruthless when he has to be. He is tough too, though he always comes across as quite likeable and charming. He is somewhat like a playboy too. Women often fall for him, though he is honest enough to tell them that he could never stay permanently with one woman. He unashamedly enjoys the fine things of life. Despite all his "vices", he comes out a winner in all his adventures.

Published works

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James Hadley Chase

[edit]
Year
published
Title Central character(s) Film adaptations
1939 No Orchids for Miss Blandish
also The Villain and the Virgin
Dave Fenner
Slim Grisson
Miss Blandish
No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948)
The Grissom Gang (1971)
1940 The Dead Stay Dumb Dillon
Roxy
Myra
1941 Twelve Chinks and a Woman
also Twelve Chinamen and a Woman
also The Doll's Bad News
Dave Fenner
Glorie Leadler
1941 Miss Callaghan Comes to Grief Jay Ellinger
Raven
Méfiez-vous fillettes (1957)
1942 Get a Load of This (short story collection)
1944 Miss Shumway Waves a Wand Ross Millan
Myra Shumway
Une blonde comme ça (1962)
Rough Magic (1995)
1945 Eve Clive Thurston
Eve

Carol

Eva (1962)
Eva (2018)
1946 I'll Get You for This Chester Cain

Miss Wonderly,

Killeano, Fleggerty||I'll Get You for This (1951)

1947 Last Page (play)

More Deadly than the Male||
||The Last Page (aka) Man Bait (1952)

1948 The Flesh of the Orchid (novel) Carol Blandish
The Sullivan Brothers
La Chair de l'orchidée (1975)
1949 You Never Know with Women Floyd Jackson
1949 You're Lonely When You're Dead Vic Malloy
Paula Bensinger
Jack Kerman
1950 Figure It Out for Yourself
also The Marijuana Mob
Vic Malloy
Paula Bensinger
Jack Kerman
1950 Lay Her Among the Lilies
ASIN B001GD0R8K
Vic Malloy
Paula Bensinger
Jack Kerman
Die Katze im Sack [de] (1965)
1951 Strictly for Cash Johnny Farrar

Della

1952 The Fast Buck
also The Soft Touch
Verne Baird
Rico
Ed Dallas
1952 Double Shuffle Steve Harmas

Hellen Harmas Maddux ||

1953 I'll Bury My Dead Nick English

Morilli

1953 This Way for a Shroud Paul Conard
Vito Ferrari
1954 Tiger By the Tail Ken Holland
Lieutenant Harry Adams
The Man in the Raincoat (1957)
Kashmakash (1973)
Akalmand (1984)
88 Antop Hill (1984)[14]
1954 Safer Dead
also Dead Ringer
Chet Sladen
1955 You've Got It Coming Harry Griffin Он своё получит (On svoyo poluchit) (Russian, 1992)
1956 There's Always a Price Tag Glyn Nash, Steve Harmas Retour de manivelle (1957)
Maharathi (2008)
1957 The Guilty Are Afraid Lew Brandon
1958 Not Safe to Be Free
also The Case of the Strangled Starlet
Jay Delaney Le Démoniaque (1968)
1959 Shock Treatment Steve Harmas, Terry Regan Ek Nari Do Roop (1973), Joshila (1973)
1959 The World in My Pocket Morgan World in My Pocket (1961)
Мираж (Mirazh) [ru] (1983)
1960 What's Better Than Money Jefferson Halliday
1960 Come Easy – Go Easy Chet Carson Chair de poule (1963)
1961 A Lotus for Miss Quon Steve Jaffe Lotus Flowers for Miss Quon (1967)
1961 Just Another Sucker Harry Barber, John Renick Dans la gueule du loup (1961)

Bullet (1976)
Palmetto (1998)

1962 I Would Rather Stay Poor Dave Calvin The Catamount Killing [fr] (1974)
1962 A Coffin from Hong Kong Nelson Ryan Coffin from Hong Kong (1964)
1963 One Bright Summer Morning Crime on a Summer Morning (1965)
36 Ghante (1974)
1963 Tell It to the Birds Steve Harmas, John Anson, Maddox
1964 The Soft Centre Frank Terrell
Valiere Burnette
1965 This Is for Real Mark Girland
1965 The Way the Cookie Crumbles Frank Terrell

Ticky Edris Phil Algir||Trop petit mon ami (fr) (1970)

1966 You Have Yourself a Deal Mark Girland The Blonde from Peking (1968)
1966 Cade Val Cade
1967 Have This One on Me Mark Girland
1967 Well Now – My Pretty Frank Terrell Казино (Casino) (Russian, 1992)[15]
1968 An Ear to the Ground Steve Harmas, Al Barney
1968 Believed Violent Frank Terrell, Jay Delaney Présumé dangereux (1990)
1969 The Whiff of Money Mark Girland
1969 The Vulture Is a Patient Bird Max Kahlenberg Shalimar (1978)
1970 Like a Hole in the Head Jay Benson Снайпер (Snayper) [ru] (Russian, 1991)
1970 There's a Hippie on the Highway Frank Terrell, Harry Mitchell Бухта смерти (Bukhta smerti) [ru] (Russian, 1991)
1971 Want to Stay Alive? Poke Toholo Le Denier du colt (1990)
1971 An Ace Up My Sleeve Helga Rolfe Crime and Passion (1976)
1972 Just a Matter of Time Chris Patterson
Sheila Oldhill
Miss Morely-Johnson
Pas folle la guêpe (fr) (1972)
1972 You're Dead Without Money Al Barney
1973 Have a Change of Scene Larry Carr
1973 Knock, Knock! Who's There? Johnny Bianda
1974 So What Happens To Me? Jack Crane
1974 Goldfish Have No Hiding Place Steve Manson
1975 Believe This – You'll Believe Anything Clay Burden
1975 The Joker in the Pack Helga Rolfe
1976 Do Me a Favour, Drop Dead Keith Devery
1977 My Laugh Comes Last Larry Lucas The Set-Up (1995)
1977 I Hold the Four Aces Helga Rolfe
1978 Consider Yourself Dead Mike Frost
1979 You Must Be Kidding Ken Brandon
Tom Lepski
Paradise City Police Force
1979 A Can of Worms Bart Anderson
1980 You Can Say That Again Jerry Stevens
1980 Try This One for Size Paradise City Police Force Try This One for Size (1989)
1980 Hand Me a Fig Leaf Dirk Wallace
1982 Have a Nice Night Passez une bonne nuit (1990)
1982 We'll Share a Double Funeral Perry Weston
Chet Logan
1983 Not My Thing Ernie Kling
1984 Hit Them Where It Hurts Dirk Wallace

Raymond Marshall

[edit]
Year
published
Title Central character(s) Film adaptations
1940 Lady, Here's Your Wreath Nick Mason Mem Saab (1971)[14]
1944 Just The Way It Is Harry Duke
1945 Blonde's Requiem Mack Spewack
1947 Make The Corpse Walk Rollo

Susan Putch ||

1947 No Business of Mine Steve Harmas
1948 Trusted Like the Fox
also Ruthless
Edwin Cushman
Grace Clark
Richard Crane
1949 The Paw in the Bottle Julie Holland
Harry Gleb
1950 Mallory Martin Corridon
1951 But a Short Time to Live
also The Pick-up
Harry Ricks
Clair Dolan
A Little Virtuous (1968)
1951 Why Pick on Me? Martin Corridon
1951 In A Vain Shadow Frank Mitchell
1952 The Wary Transgressor David Chisholm
1953 The Things Men Do Harry Collins Ça n'arrive qu'aux vivants [fr] (1959)
1954 The Sucker Punch
  • Chad Winters
  • Vestal Shelley
  • Lt. Leggit
A Kiss for a Killer (1957); Aar Ya Paar (Hindi 1997)
1954 Mission To Venice Don Micklem Mission to Venice (1964)
1955 Mission To Siena Don Micklem Waiting Room to the Beyond (1964)
1956 You Find Him, I'll Fix Him Ed Dawson Les Canailles [fr] (1960)
1958 Hit And Run Chester Scott Délit de fuite [fr] (1959)
Rigged (1985)

Others

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  • He Wont Need It Now (as James L. Docherty, 1941)
  • The Mirror in Room 22Slipstream: A Royal Air Force Anthology (as R. Raymond, 1946)[16]
  • More Deadly Than the Male (as Ambrose Grant, 1947)
  • There's a Hippie on the Highway, Bollywood movie Victoria 203, 1972[citation needed]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Obituary Variety 13 February 1985
  2. ^ Frank Northen Magill (1988). Critical survey of mystery and detective fiction. Salem Press. p. 319. ISBN 0-89356-486-9.
  3. ^ Publishers' Association, Booksellers Association of Great Britain and Ireland (1982). The Bookseller. J. Whitaker. p. 46.
  4. ^ "Biography".
  5. ^ a b Hunter, Jefferson (2010). English Filming, English Writing. Indiana University Press. p. 105. ISBN 9780253004147.
  6. ^ Raffles and Miss Blandish, review of No Orchids for Miss Blandish by George Orwell
  7. ^ Kabatchnik, Amnon (2012). Blood on the Stage, 1975-2000: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection. Scarecrow Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780810883550.
  8. ^ Phillips, Gene D. (2014). Gangsters and G-Men on Screen: Crime Cinema Then and Now. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 25. ISBN 9781442230767.
  9. ^ Haining, Peter (1998). The Mammoth Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories (1 ed.). New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 334. ISBN 0786705833.
  10. ^ "The Sunday Tribune - Books". www.tribuneindia.com. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  11. ^ "Invisible Ink: No 126 - James Hadley Chase". The Independent. 2 June 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  12. ^ Ulrike Tabbert; Juhani Rudanko (2021). "Aspects of Characterisation in James Hadley Chase's Crime Fiction: Multiple Perspectives". English Studies. 102 (3): 362–383. doi:10.1080/0013838X.2021.1911106. S2CID 235219055.
  13. ^ David Caute, Joseph Losey: A Revenge on Life (1994).
  14. ^ a b @IWTKQuiz (21 November 2022). "Lady Here's Your Wreath (1940) - Mem Saab (1971) Tiger By The Tail ('54) - Kashmakash ('73), Akalmand ('84), 88 Antop Hill (2004) The Sucker Punch ('54) - Aar Ya Paar ('94) There Is Always A Price Tag ('56) - Maharathi ('98) Shock Treatment ('59) - Joshila ('73)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  15. ^ "Kazino (1992) - IMDb". IMDb.
  16. ^ Haining, Peter (1998). The Mammoth Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories (1 ed.). New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 334. ISBN 0786705833.
[edit]
  • PC Sarkar's dedicated website (2004) on [www.angelfire.com/celeb2/hadleychase/index.htm]
  • James Hadley Chase at IMDb