Oh really? Considering most of the best dialogue was actually lifted straight from the book, I think it really should be credited to Chandler. At best, Faulkner and his cowriters were simply wise enough to leave Chandler’s words alone.
I suppose I could try actually answering the question posed in the OP. Unquestionably Bogey.
Has anyone mentioned Gene Kelly yet? And Lon Chaney (Sr.) of course.
Rita Hayworth. MMMRROWWW
Harold Lloyd
Jimmy Stewart
Cary Grant
Peter Lorre
Bette Davis
Rita Hayworth.
I forgot Richard Widmark. The bad guy’s bad guy, ya squid!
John Garfield, aka Julius Garfinkle if memory serves me right.
Louise Brooks was a cutie too!
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, top of the list.
Fred Astaire, with and without Ginger Rogers
Ingrid Bergman
Bette Davis
William Holden
Humphrey Bogart
Kirk Douglas
Barbara Stanwyck
Van Heflin, who was featured this past month on Turner Classic Movies, and I was very happy. 
People I have gained a greater appreciation for the past year or so since I got TCM and have seen more of their work:
Gloria Grahame
Dick Powell, with Ruby Keeler in their early musicals, and his later, more serious films.
Paul Heinreid. In Now, Voyager, for example, he’s funny, sexy. charming… where was all of this in Casablanca, where he’s such an unimpressive stick?
Hey, don’t get down on the sticks. We need more Ralph Bellamys for the Cary Grants to play off.
And I’d even go with Lon Chaney Jr. - maybe not as good as his dad, but still memorable.
I apologise to any sticks I may have inadvertantly offended with my unkind remarks about Mr. Heinreid.
However, anyone who wishes to see Heinreid in a non-stick-y performance should see Now, Voyager–which is coincidentally on TCM this very afternoon at 6:00 Eastern-time (I didn’t know that when I mentioned it this morning). It also has a great performance by Bette Davis, as a mother-dominated, repressed frump who has a nervous breakdown and comes out of the sanitarium looking simply fabulous.
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Now there’s typecasting! Bette Davis as a frump!
She was damned good in The Petrified Forest, tho.
Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda are the ones that pop immediatly in mind.
Oh, Gene Kelly!..
I remember reading a bit by an an author who wrote “Men wanted to be Fred Astaire. Women wanted to sleep with Gene Kelly.”
I was a film student and to this day I’m sort of a film connoisseuse, and I still think that Gene Kelly was one of the sexiest men to ever appear on the silver screen.
or run across the grass in her undies like she did in Penelope…mmmwwwrrr…
Good pull.
Ray Davies summed it up with one line: “If you covered him up with garbage, George Sanders would still have style!”
But stand close by Bette Davis, because hers was such a lonely life.
My favorite is the lovely and talented Ingrid Bergman.
Very close runner-up: am I the only one who loves Claude Rains? He was excellent in everything I’ve seen him in. His role in Notorious was almost impossible - he’s the guy who marries Ingrid Bergman and then poisons her, and even when she’s at her most tragic, he actually succeeds at being half-sympathetic because he loves her so much. Pure charisma. I adore Claude.
I second Claude Rains for sure. The Invisible Man? The Phantom of the Opera? Casablanca!
William Bendix. A great “everyman.”
Danny Kaye – for all the SCAdians, watch Danny Kaye in the Court Jester - hilarious!
The Marx Brothers – the other day I was thinking that the current generation probably doesn’t even know who the Marx brothers were… Isn’t that sad?
Mae West – “Goodness had nothing to do with it” - can’t believe I got to be the first to mention Mae West!
daere
A couple more votes for Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Stewart.