Philip Marlowe, Private Eye

I remember watching the first season of this when it came out and absolutely adored it. Powers Boothe's portrayal was just right. It was around the same time that Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes first aired, so we were spoilt for quality detective drama. If I recall correctly, it was part financed by London Weekend Television (part of the ITV network at the time) and shown on ITV in prime time. I recall them announcing that, even though the show was popular, they would not be making any more after the initial five due to it being so expensive. Nearly every item in the show was a genuine period piece, with very little being reproduced. This, and the fact that it was shot in the UK, made it extremely costly. The second series was never shown properly in the UK. Odd episodes would turn up in the early hours of the morning and, although the production values were not as good, the shows were still enjoyable. Hopefully someone will produce a restored version of the shows on DVD (previous comments claim that the quality is not too good). I also think it's time for Marlowe to appear again. James Caan's version in "Poodle Springs" didn't quite work as I thought he was a little too old for the role. Ideally, Marlowe should be in his late thirties/early forties: young enough to take (or throw) a punch, but old enough to have "been around the block" a few times. Ten years ago, Harrison Ford would have been ideal, but now I'm not sure. Any ideas .... ?

I've meant to post a review of this ground-breaking series for some time. The untimely passing of Powers Boothe this week has goaded me into action...

To sum up: this series is not just the best adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, it's the *only* adaptation that really manages to to remain true to the letter and the spirit of the books. Amazing, but true.

Humphrey Bogart was charming as Marlowe, of course... but his Big Sleep (especially the best-known edit) is 99% Howard Hawks, and should have a 'may contain traces of Chandler' warning on the label. What's more, Bogey couldn't have been much less like the character described by Chandler. In fact, Chandler's own ideal Marlowe is said to have been Cary Grant, which gives you some idea of just how far off-track Bogart, the geriatric Mitchum, and others have been. (Let us not even speak of Dick Powell.) Robert Montgomery could have been good, but he loused it up with that stupid first-person camera business, which has never worked and never will. Astoundingly, the best Marlowe prior to Boothe was Elliott Gould, in Altman's modernized, revisionist yet nonetheless evocative Long Goodbye. (EDIT: forgot to mention James Garner, who was very good, though a bit more Rockford than Marlowe.)

But Powers Boothe was an even more appropriate choice. He had just the right age, just the right gravitas - the world-weary toughness of a Bogart or Mitchum, but also the class, the energy and the good looks described by Chandler. He also had the advantage of being less familiar. When you looked at Boothe you didn't see a movie star - you saw Marlowe, a hard-working gumshoe, and nobody else.

The Boothe series also marked a rare attempt to include the *most* significant character from Chandler's stories: the city of Los Angeles. (The best previous attempt was, again, Altman's Long Goodbye.) Hawks' Big Sleep is set-bound, and could be taking place in New York as easily as LA. Mitchum's Marlowe was set in England - a travesty! The Powers Boothe series at least attempted to capture some of the gaudy, steamy, crazy city that Chandler created in his writing. Ironically, the series was not filmed in Hollywooed, but in Toronto, which gives you some idea of what can be done with a bit of creative camera work and a few judiciously-chosen locations.

Another very cool thing about this series is that instead of adapting The Big Sleep - YET AGAIN - it adapts some of Chandler's excellent short stories. We get that flavorful dialog, those evocative descriptions, and the dark noir-ish plots - all of them fresh and barely familiar to even the most devoted Marlowe fans.

Obviously, it's hard to beat Bogey and Hawks for sheer entertainment value. Or Altman for quirky, innovative filmmaking. But when it comes to all-out fidelity to the cherished Chandler stories, Powers Boothe in Philip Marlowe Private Eye has no rival.

Raymond Chandler practically invented the detective noir genre with his Philip Marlowe novels and stories. The trench coat. The fedora. The monotone first-person narration and the cynical outlook on life. They all started with Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.

So it's only appropriate that several actors have brought Phillip Marlowe to life over the years, most notably James Garner and Humphrey Bogart.

It's hard not to keep Humphrey Bogart's portrayal in mind when watching a Philip Marlowe mystery, and most actors understandably pale by comparison. That said, Powers Boothe still does a worthy job. You must put all of the sleazy roles he's ever played out of your head. He perfectly portrays Philip Marlowe as a cynical private investigator with a tough exterior but a heart of gold.

Samuel Matlovsky's musical score is the icing on the cake. The background music, and especially the haunting theme tune, definitely enhance the 1930's gumshoe atmosphere.

I've only seen a few episode from the '86 series. These episodes of "Phillip Marlowe: Private Eye" are filled with clever twist and turns, exciting gun fights, and plenty of tough-talking wise guys. If nothing else, they will inspire you to seek out the writings of Raymond Chandler.

Powers Boothe is the quintessential Philip Marlowe; no one can ever best his performance in this series. He is cool, hip, a great wisecracker, and obsessed about the truth while seeming not to care. The next-best aspect of the series was the complete re-creation of the 1930's; sets were perfect, cars were big and bulky, clothes were gorgeous, and art deco abounded. Marlowe's bathroom even had those pastel nile green tiles that were everywhere in the 30's and 40's.

The 1986 series listed here was not the first, though, and not the best. HBO did 5 episodes in 1983 that have never been run since and were all mostly filmed, I believe, in England; these featured the luminous Kathryn Leigh Scott as Annie Rearden. She doesn't show up much in the second set, and that in itself makes the newer series a pale copy of the original.

These original episodes are the ones that should have been released first as they are far superior, and I look forward to them being issued. "The King in Yellow" was a masterpiece about a murdered big-band trumpeteer whom everyone hated so suspects were plentiful; "Smart Aleck Kill" mimicked Wallace Reid's drug-induced death in grand Hollywood style; "The Pencil" found Marlowe vying with a mafia boss to get a stool pigeon out of town alive; "Nevada Gas" featured a corrupt attorney who is targeted by his wife's boyfriend (played with nasty panache by "Hawk the Slayer's" John Terry); "Finger Man" has a femme fatale who takes up with a friend of Marlowe's, who then tries to frame Marlowe for a robbery.

This is a quality production, but can't truly be called a series. Only these 11 episodes were filmed, to my knowledge. I taped them all on their original run, and they weren't treated as an ongoing thing, which was a distinct oversight on HBO's part. Powers Boothe is magnetic as well as truly wonderful in this role, and they could have had a real winner on their hands if they had continued with the team used on the original 5 episodes, and without such a long break between the two sets.

I just recently purchased the DVD edition of these shows, and they are really interesting. The audio quality on the DVD is horrible for the early episodes (1983), but those have the nicer opening credits and generally very good storytelling.

So far I've only seen one of the later episodes, "Pick-up on Noon Street", but it was pretty nice. The audio quality is immensely better than on the earlier episodes, but the acting was a little more hammy over all. Robin Givens was good, and Boothe was great as usual. The actions sequences were pretty poorly filmed, though, in my opinion.

Overall, HBO had their hands on something special here. Power Boothe is (as others have said here) the best Marlowe ever on screen. I love Bogey, and Mitchum is great in Farewell My Lovely, but Boothe feels like he IS the Marlowe, and his delivery of the dialog and voice-overs is superb.

I really wish that HBO or someone else would do another remake of The Long Goodbye with Powers Boothe as an older Marlowe. That'd be the best of Chandler played by the best Marlowe.