“Ian Fleming was massively influenced by [Raymond] Chandler. So someone like Bond is a reflection of Marlowe because he’s dry, he’s ironic, he’s the drinker, he’s the lone wolf. These characters are still with us, they still live on. And they are so totemic in their style that they will never ever age.”
Actor Toby Stephens
Back in 2011 the BBC dramatized many of Chandler’s novels including The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and Playback with Toby Stephens playing Marlowe in a series they called Classic Chandler. (You can purchase that series on iTunes.) It’s interesting to point out that the character Philip Marlowe first appear in print back in 1939 in Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep, and James Bond first appeared in print in 1953 in Flemming’s Casino Royale.
And here’s a short clip where James Bond author Ian Fleming says he “simply stole” the name James Bond. (A great example of what I wrote about in the post Where Do Ideas Come From? (A+B=C).
Related post: Raymond Chandler Interview (by Ian Flemming)