The Best of Philip Marlowe, Private Eye

I just got my complete Raymond Chandler books back. It's been a real long time since I read any Marlowe stories; this thread is a good enough reason to get back into them.

Whatever happened to the adaptation that had Clive Davis attached to it? I think that was inspired casting.

Owen? Haven't heard anything lately.

Bogie's admittedly not a favorite of mine and really, he wasn't doing anything he hadn't already done as Sam Spade: the same old Bogie routine. Powell didn't have as much of a movie star persona to impose on the material and so was arguably a better fit with the everyman qualities of the character. He was also funnier at smartass remarks (warming up for Blake Edwards' hilarious radio program Richard Diamond, Private Detective - check it out, Powell's terrific).

Mitchum's older, worn-out interpretation was refreshing but a little too sleepy for my taste. That leaves Robert Montgomery, who I'm hesitant to even count because most of the performance is voice-only, James Garner's TV bland acting, and the ironic hipster New Hollywood baggage of Elliott Gould. No contest for yours truly: Powell.

Um, yeah. Clive Owen. Though I would like to see the CEO of J Records' interpretation of the classic character.

I have never seen a Marlowe movie. Which one should I see?

Lee is very entertaining, and has an amazing moment where he leaps up and kicks out a ceiling lamp (recreated in THE WAY OF THE DRAGON).

I should check this out. I love old time radio.

Nope. But I should. Nor have I seen the 60s and 80s television shows. I've heard good things about the 80s program, and I think all of the episodes are out on DVD. The holy grail for me is the live production of The Long Goodbye that was done for Climax! starring Dick Powell but it's more than likely that will be lost forever.

Fixed, and as amazing as the casting would have been, the flipside was that Frank Miller was signed to direct. Yeech. The novel to be adapted was Trouble Is My Business (awesome fucking title).

I like the Murder, My Sweet/OHMSS comparison. That's the Marlowe film I love and the only one I own.

FWIW, Chandler thought Powell was the best of the screen Marlowes.

For all of the talk of The Long Goodbye's unfaithfullness, I actually think Elliot Gould comes closest to what Chandler summed up Marlowe as being - a depply moral man in a profoundly immoral world. Dude is always getting beat up and taken for a sucker.

While I like Long Goodbye (though not to Pauline Kael levels), Chandler's Marlowe also generally tends to exhibit a base level of competence that didn't particularly seem to interest Altman.

As I say, I like the movie, I get what he's doing, but these days we'd call it "deconstruction" of the character, and that makes it rather apples and oranges next to the other films.

I would go with "Murder,My Sweet" as the best Marlowe film.
The 1978 Remake of "The Big Sleep" is the worst. Updating the film to the 1970's....BAD.
Moving the location from LA to London....Even Worse.

I actually watched Farewell, My Lovely last night it was ok, Charlotte Rampling looked stunning, Mitchum played a better PI in Out of the Past, the film wasn't really all that memorable, it felt like a made for TV movie to me.

I honestly think that Bruce Willis in his prime would've made a terrific Philip Marlowe, Joe Hallenbeck the closest we'll ever get to that.

It's well made but it really seemed kind of perfunctory to me. It also had Stallone in a small role right before he started work on Rocky.

I guess I'm just partial to Bogart, he delivered Chandler's wisecrack's like a champ.

I love Gould's Marlowe, and you should try to get your hands on the audiobook versions of The Long Goodbye, Farewell My Lovely and The Big Sleep that he did. Fantastic stuff! He really captures the cynical and sardonic nature of the books in those.

Love the books, haven't seen any of the actual adaptations.....

.....so my favorite would have to be Shane Black's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang at the moment.

I finally got to see Marlowe, the 1969 adaptation of The Little Sister over the Christmas holiday, and boy, was it a big disappointment. The movie bungles the book's plot to the point of making no sense whatsoever, and Marlowe himself doesn't seem to know what's going on even late in the movie. Not even the always likable James Garner could save it. Nor could Rita Moreno in pasties (she looks great BTW in a surprisingly risque scene, and her chemistry with Garner sizzles. Too bad there's not many scenes with them together). However, the film is worth seeing for the Bruce Lee/Marlowe showdown. I'm thinking of doing a write-up about it on my blog, complete with screen captures, simply because it's the only meeting between two of my idols -- one real, one fictional!

Anyway, I'd love to see it widescreen (the version I saw was pan-and-scan), although I'm not sure it would make a difference quality-wise.

Oh, and for those who want to check it out, Farewell, My Lovely (with Mitchum) is downloadable on iTunes. I actually watched it on Netflix a few months back. Not sure if it's still available though.

The commentary I have describes it as an anti-christmas movie; there's certainly parts that mine this territory well (the police chief on the phone, for instance.)

Saw The Long Goodbye over the weekend. I'm not schooled on the Marlowe novels, but I've seen a good chunk of the movies mentioned in this thread, my favorite being Murder, My Sweet. Got to say I kind of loved Altman's take, and Gould's performance. Gould's dishevelled, chain smoking smartass took me by surprise- I don't know what I expected from the movie, but like a good book, I couldn't put it down. And the ending was, uh, killer.

Great work from everybody, really, from Sterling Hayden all the way down to an uncredited Arnold Schwarzenegger, as one of Marty Augustine's (a delightfully evil Mark Rydell) muscle.

Of course this is a detective movie from Robert Altman, so it doesn't follow the normal beats, but the round-a-bout mystery is engrossing nonetheless. Could've watched a whole movie about Henry Gibson's quack Dr. Verringer.
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I used to love that Powers Boothe Marlowe series that was on, what was it, HBO? But that might have been because I've been a fan of Boothe ever since catching Southern Comfort at an early age, so I wonder if the show is worth a revisit.

I'm reading and watching The Big Sleep for a class right now, and I'm using it as an excuse to get a little obsessed with Chandler. Where do I go next with Marlowe, film-wise?

And Elvis, when you refer to the original cut of the Big Sleep, do you mean the version that was originally released, or the version before reshoots?

Thanks. Being something of a Mitchum fan I really want to track down Farewell, My Lovely, but that seems like it's out of print. I see it's on iTunes, but I'm not familiar with the quality of iTunes movies, or whether or not it's burnable (all things being equal I prefer not to watch my movies on my laptop).

Anybody know if the series with Powers Boothe is any good?

The Boothe series is good, but it's a retro period piece, with all that entails: there's an inevitable museum quality you don't get with contemporary stuff like Bogart.

Back in college, I took a class in American Popular Literature, and the prof turned out to be a friend and former editor of Chandler's. Made me wish it had been an entire semester of Chandler, instead of just The Big Sleep.

Let us know when you're ready for Dashiell Hammett. The Maltese Falcon is the obvious starting point, but you'll be amazed at how much of Red Harvest you already know, from movies and books that "borrowed" from it.

Oh I've seen and am reading The Maltese Falcon. Red Harvest I know the gist of thanks to Yojimbo, Fistful of Dollars, etc. Hammet's prose is great, he really had that terse to the point style down better than just about anyone.

Big Mitchum fan here, but Farewell, My Lovely is mostly forgettable. Stick to The Yakuza and The Friends Of Eddie Coyle for late period Mitch, imo.

Haha, sometimeds it feels like you like every old movie ever.

I dunno, it's not a bad movie or anything, but the museum quality Jeb points to in the Boothe version already creeps in, I think, and I remember Mitchum being a bit too sleepy-eyed even for his standards. Might give it another whirl, though.

Well, I think we could all agree (at least) that Mitchum's BIG SLEEP is lacking.

Yeah, it's a neither-fish-nor-fowl deal, really: no budget to go the retro route again, but a story that flounders in its contemporary setting.

Great supporting cast, though.

I actually prefer the 1946 version of "The Big Sleep". I did watch it first however. When watching the 1945 version, I immediately liked it better, but as the story and film progressed I grew tired of it. The emotional drama seemed to be diffused in replacement of exposition. The scene I'm specifically referring to is the scene with the Marlowe, the Cop and the D.A.

Ultimately, I just found the scenes with Bogart and Bacall more enticing.

My blog on the subject - Old Movies: "The Big Sleep"

So I've got the Big Sleep and Long Goodbye on DVD from the library and I'm going to do a little Marlow marathon this weekend. I think I'm going to do my second paper for this class on the film version of the Big Sleep.

Great idea! You'll have lots to write about.

So I watched the Long Goodbye today, still processing it. It's interesting in that it seems to presenting the idea that the detective is an irrelevant and spent force in the world, and I wonder if it was meant as a criticism of the neo-noir resurgance that was going on at the time.

I also think I've accidentally started assuming elements of Gould's performance in my speech posture. It's kind of weird.

Jason O'Mara filmed a pilot for ABC playing Marlowe before Life on Mars - never made the cut. A clip from the pilot used to be online, but my original link is dead.