Marlowe

Marlowe (1969)

While not a great one, this is an unusual version of Philip Marlowe on film. James Garner is an odd choice in a way, but he's handsome and charming. The photographer, Bill Daniels, is a stalwart from the classic years of Hollywood, and it shows, with nicely filmed scenes (in color). Daniels is famous as Garbo's main photographer, if that gives an idea of his long lineage.

It's definitely 1969. New Hollywood is here, and there is a certain cheese factor that is part of the game, and not in the best ways. And the story itself is just not Raymond Chandler's best. Director Paul Bogart does his best, but for a comparison of a noir crime update, you might prefer the wonderful "The Long Goodbye" from 1973.

But here we are. Garner is really good, in fact, and if not a Humphrey Bogart type, that might be really appropriate. Still, he's indifferent to pretty women until he isn't, he drinks, he's sarcastic, he is appropriately weary. Here he smokes a pipe, and he remains interesting.

There is (for me) a simple appeal to the sets and the time it was shot. It's a crazy time in US history (great crazy). Everything is updated—there is no sense of recreating the 1940s, but rather of just setting the old story (from the 30s) into the new world.

There are some fun curiosities, like Carroll O'Conner (the leading male in "All in the Family," which started the year before)—who isn't quite convincing as a tough cop. And the gay hairdresser played by Christopher Cary. And the side actor who does karate on Marlowe's office (for real) by the name of Bruce Lee (in his first American film). And two beautiful women (as usual) who play more pithy parts than you'd expect (clever or strong) until, of course, the stripper scene at the end. One of them, the fabulous Rita Moreno, had a continuing career with Garner in the "Rockford Files" for t.v. And finally another William Daniels (unrelated) who played Dustin Hoffman's dad in "The Graduate" two years early, and who is so different here you might not recognize him.

Okay, so what ends up happening is a weird mix of humor and cleverness. The movie really wants to entertain, and yet it keeps inside the hard edged world of classic 1940s noir with references to tough guys and ice picks in the neck. It has almost absurdist humor and then it seems (somewhat) to want to take the crime and the criminals and the sleuthing seriously. It doesn't quite jive.

Blame the era, maybe, but watch "Klute" or other detective yarns from the era and you can see an opportunity that went astray. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but only by kicking back. The story is a bit jumbled, either at its root or in its telling, but I think they thought viewers would enjoy the whole situation and all these interesting actors at work. It only goes so far.

Much is said concerning the merits of re-imagining the Philip Marlowe character in the swinging sixties, bringing to it a pop culture emphasis that seems eons away from Humphrey Bogart's turn, but there's three good reasons to consider this Marlowe adaptation.

First-rate cast stars the always affable James Garner in the title character. He's a modest Marlowe, not arrogant, assuming nor especially gifted at his trade, he toils and the rewards follow (albeit with some distress involved). Lovely Gayle Hunnicutt plays the femme fatale along with little sister Sharon Farrell, while Rita Moreno trumps them both with a critical role as a stripper of more than passing resemblance to Hunnicutt.

Then there's the surprise packet, namely, Bruce Lee with just a couple of scenes, one of which involving him demolishing Garner's office like it was made of balsa wood. A perfectly timed scissor kick shatters the overhead light shade (a good foot above his own head), before he dons his sunglasses, turns on his heel and casually walks out the door he's just kicked in half. It's a stern warning to Garner to lay off, but equally hilarious in its approach of which both Lee and Garner seem aware. If you take nothing from the film, you'll always remember that scene.

And finally, if you're familiar with them, the theme tune "Little Sister" is a catchy jazz-pop song by Orpheus, the band who had four albums of jazz-psychedelic pop in the mould of what would later become the signature of Lighthouse, Chicago and others of the ilk. Great adaptation, a real time capsule of the era and well worth a look.

This is a well-done updating of the classic Raymond Chandler character Philip Marlowe, made famous in the film noirs of the 1940s. James Garner stars, in a pre-Rockford Files style, as Marlowe and carries the usual charm and wit for which he's so well known. A standout performance is from Sharon Farrell as the tortured sister. Following on from such films as "The Detective", "Lady in Cement" and "Madigan", this is another fine example of the late 60s example of the lone anti-hero who dwells in a world of corruption and violence. Well-written and acted, and quite funny at times.

Now it's James Garner's turn to take on the role of Raymond Chandler's legendary private detective Philip Marlowe in an updated screen adaption of Chandler's novel, The Little Sister.

The original novel had the title character be the little sister of a film star who has come in from Manhattan, Kansas to look for their brother who's gone missing. To reflect the update the film star is now the star of a family situation comedy with an image that won't stand up to scandal, especially if it's learned that she's been intimately involved with a notorious mobster.

I have to say that this film was updated far better than Robert Mitchum's version of The Big Sleep, although it's not nearly as good as The original Big Sleep and Murder, My Sweet. Garner is appropriately cynical and appropriately noble in the right moments.

Carroll O'Connor and Kenneth Tobey are a pair of homicide cops who are naturally frustrated with Garner who seems to be blocking them from clearing up several murders after he's hired to find the missing brother. Actually as per usual he's just trying to keep them from reaching wrong conclusions.

Gayle Hunnicutt is the TV star and the little sister is Sharon Farrell and if the film were remade today you would be casting Jessica Simpson in Farrell's role. Rita Moreno is one fetching stripper who goes way back with Hunnicutt. She and Garner work well together and Garner had her on his Rockford Files TV series a few times as Rita Capkovic, a woman of middling virtue.

One thing I do have to criticize. Bruce Lee has a small role as the kung-fu bodyguard of gangster H.M. Wynant. Personally I cannot believe that Garner could have taken out Lee that easily, tricking him the way he did.

Though Marlowe is not a bad film, I don't think most viewers will like how Bruce Lee ended up.

Following a typical Chandlerian plot involving lots of intrigue, sex, lies, booze, and violence, Garner makes a mildly charming, laid-back Marlowe, trading a fair share of witty one-liners with the policemen, toughs and many eager young women he encounters, as he tries to unravel a convoluted missing persons/blackmail/murder case. Gets an interesting edge from the sixties characters and attitudes (Marlowe's hairdresser neighbour providing light relief, the stoner hotel at the start) but staying very much in the world of sleazy hoods and wealthy stars associated with earlier Bogey takes on Chandler. Bruce Lee's performance as a toughie sent to threaten Marlowe with some spectacular chop-socky is a high-point but sadly brief, and Garner is no Bogey, and the director is no Howard Hawks. Good-ish stuff, but confused by too many personality-free characters (rather than by a complex web as in The Big Sleep), and lacking Bogart's ice-hard edge, Garner is a smooth, witty and fairly convincing Marlowe; likewise the film, fairly convincing, but no classic.