Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

secondtake 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.

Spikeopath Marlowe is directed by Paul Bogart and adapted to screenplay by Stirling Silliphant from the novel The Little Sister written by Raymond Chandler. It stars James Garner, Gayle Hunnicut, Carroll O'Connor and Rita Moreno. Music is by Peter Matz and cinematography by William H. Daniels.Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlow (Garner) is working on what he thinks is a simple missing persons case, how wrong he is!Q as in Quintessential - U as in Uninhibited - E as in Extrasensory - S as in Subliminal - T as in Toots!Another of the interpretations for the great Chandler creation of Philip Marlowe, unsurprisingly met with mixed notices - just as all the others have done. You do wonder what Chandler would have made of the role portrayals that came out post his death? I like to think he very much would have enjoyed Garner's take, because this Marlowe is a quip happy wise guy, unflappable and cool, he portrays so much with just a glance, and the girls love him.The story is juicy in its little complexities, spinning Marlowe into muddy waters the further he investigates things. His life is always under threat, be it by serial ice-pick users or Asian martial artists (Bruce Lee no less in a nutty couple of scenes) wishing to inflict death, or of arrest by an increasingly frustrated police force. Bogart and Daniels keep the whole thing stylish looking, with film noir camera tricks and colour photography infusing the period details. While the supporting cast, notably the ladies, give Garner some splendid support.It's a different Marlowe for sure, but a thoroughly engaging and entertaining one. 7/10

mgtbltp It's all about cool, cool that aura of quiet intensity along that ever changing cutting edge balancing between conservative and excess, the spark between new and old, you know it when you see it. William Powell had it, Noir icons Bogart, Dick Powell, Mitchum, Conte, Andrews, Ford, Holden, and Hayden had it. James Garner as Marlowe displays one of the last vestiges of classic, big city, private eye cool, surfing the counter culture tsunami of the 60s. Yes, other P.I. depictions will follow, the majority on TV, but they will be diluted and tainted by the sea change of the Age of Aquarius, but they will be written quirky, cutesy, and PC. The only other film P.I's that have the classic cool in contemporary settings are Paul Newman's Harper films, Armand Assante in I, The Jury, and possibly Elliot Gould's turn as Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, and Gene Hackman as Mosby in Night Moves.Right out of the chute we are dropped both visually into Marlowe's current case in the title sequence by the use of a nice dynamic camera aperture motif that reveals multiple candid papparazi/surveillance photos, and audibly by a bubblegum style pop tune from the silly side of the commercial sixties. Titled "Little Sister" (sung by Orpheus) that ties the film to Raymond Chander's novel "The Little Sister" The tune itself then morphs into a tinny sounding diegetic song blaring from the radio of Marlowe's top down Dodge convertible. The car rolls along, and only in southern California, a horsehead oil pump studded beach, and up to a peace sign and flower power festooned hippie hotel called The Infinite Pad. Jammed into the chrome barred appointments of the dash is a photo of Orin Quest, the wayward missing in action brother from some hicksville Kansas fly speck who blew town down Route 66 in search of kicks. Marlowe wades through the throng of stoned out denizens and into the mangers office replete with posters, burning incense, and love beads. Marlowe soon finds out that he's in deeper doodoo than the $50 dollar retainer chump change case warranted.So how, you may ask, does a knight errant loner like Marlowe survive in a world of full page add, multiple operative, private investigation agencies? Well, he sublets half of his shabby suite of family-hand-me- down furnished offices to a beauty college who's ex-pat Brit proprietor doubles as an answering service/receptionist. He is good for a few chuckles. Cinematographer William Daniels (Brute Force, Lured, The Naked City) achieves a subdued almost laid back noir-ish style, photographing sleazy late 60s LA in a way that emphasizes the thin veneer of "new" that cosmetically covers the same old decay, its just Day-Glo painted now. Noir archetypes such as the Bradbury Building, and Union Station provide a cinematic memory link to classic film noir, while modern apartments, cloud club panoramic restaurants, the Hotel Alvarado and Sunset Blvd. strip joints anchor us to 1969. The use of split screen both advances the story line and occasionally provides a bit of humor. Another segment at a TV studio juxtaposes a throwaway modern dance routine along side one of the 20 Greta Garbo films that Daniels is famous for. Garner disdains the dance number to a TV exec telling him that the Garo film is the real entertainment.1969 contemporary Marlowe is a cool level headed professional, efficient, witty, and generous he even has a sleep over gal pal who works at the DMV who he also pumps for information. He eschews fedora and trench coat for sunglasses but still smokes a pipe and drinks bourbon.The stories catalyst is Orfamay's search for brother Orin and turns convolutedly into something else. Gayle Hunnicutt is Mavis Wald, a prominent TV star billed as "America's Sweetheart" an almost auguring like reference to Mary Tyler Moore & her show by the same name. Marlowe's involvement shakes things up enough to get various seemingly un-related individuals getting caught in a vortex with bodies piling up. Watch for Bruce Lee trashing Marlowe's office. The repartee between Carroll O'Connor and Marlowe. The sequence at Union Station where a woman is caught sitting at a lunch counter between Marlowe and Orfamay where they update all the skulduggery that has taken place the various facial expressions she displays are hilarious. This is a reference to a similar set up in The Dark Corner where Mark Stevens and Lucille Ball are conversing while a ticket booth girl overhears them.Fellows shines as Orfamay. Jackie Coogan is good as shifty Grant W. Hicks. George Tyne is a hoot as as the Hotel Alvarado house dick. Rita Moreno sizzles as stripper Dolores, doing a very sophisticated striptease routine that's low on tease and high on strip. It makes you think of what may have been if Hollywood had not been shackled by the Hays Code. Think of the strip routines of Rita Hayward in Gilda, Adele Jergens in Armored Car Robbery, Anita Ekberg in Screaming Mimi, Robin Raymond in the Glass Wall, Barbara Nichols in Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, even Kim Novak in The Man With the Golden Arm. The soundtrack after the title sequence reverts into variations of a nice cool jazzy theme. If I have any quibbles it would be for even more LA location shots (especially with the cinematographer of The Naked City). DVD from Warner Archive Collection. 9/10

Robert J. Maxwell James Garner is a likable guy and professional actor. On screen he's quiet, capable, but subject to surprise. That's kind of a problem here because Raymond Chandler's stories depend so heavily on the character of Philip Marlowe -- and Marlowe has to be interesting rather than merely likable. Dick Powell was a zesty hard-boiled Marlowe in "Murder My Sweet." Humphrey Bogart was a cynical and tough Marlowe in "The Big Sleep." Robert Mitchum brought an air of ontological Angst to Marlowe in "Farewell My Lovely." Garner's Marlowe is no more colorful than Jim Rockford or Perry Mason or Jessica Fletcher. Garner's Marlowe doesn't clear the bar set by "Columbo."The story begins interestingly enough with a couple of ice pick murders but soon turns anfractuous. Great names though: Mavis Wald, Orfamay Quest, Sonny Steelgrave, Oliver Hady. I haven't read the Chandler story but if those names didn't emerge from the print version they should have.The plot itself is of little consequence. As usual the unraveling of the mystery brings Marlowe into contact with an assortment of slightly odd characters. We've seen most of them before -- the irritated police, the dame with money, class, and the fortificate tongue. Gayle Hunnicut, with that nose that belongs on a carved cameo profile, looks as if she could easily have all that and many other virtues as well. At one point, Bruce Lee shows up and demolishes Marlowe's office with his feet and elbows, just to demonstrate his martial arts prowess. Later, he goes a step too far. I admit to a certain confusion somewhere in the middle of this thing. I happen to be on a voyage of self discovery and the one certain thing I've discovered is that, as you age, you can't eat anything without nodding out afterward. Inevitably, the grape is followed by the coma. But it didn't prevent me from an appreciation of Gayle Hunnicut's nose -- or Rita Moreno all over. Kenneth Tobey is fine as a cop. He's the Air Force captain in "The Thing From Another World." Over the next 15 or 20 years he began to look, not just older, but wrecked, and he's great. Catch him as the seedy union leader smoking pinched cigarettes in "The Candidate."The failure of this movie isn't all Garner's fault. Okay, so his range is limited and he lacks flamboyance. But so do almost all the other elements of the movie. The Los Angeles we see looks like the Los Angeles of any made-for-TV movie. The locations are dull and the lighting is flat. "Dragnet" had more local color and I won't even mention "L. A. Confidential," which had a genuine sense of place. The set dressing is unimaginative. Take Marlowe's office. THIS isn't Marlowe's office, dark, with a neon sign blinking on and off somewhere outside. It looks like a set hastily constructed on a sound stage. An exception is the interior of the Bradbury Building, which is familiar and looks much as it did in "Wolf", "Double Indemnity", and several other flicks. The Bradbury Building IS Los Angeles. I almost sobbed when I saw it.Maybe one of the killer mistakes made by the people behind this effort, especially the writer, Sterling Silliphant, was deciding to leave out any narration by Marlowe, because that's where Raymond Chandler's unforgettable charm lay. "Her hair was the color of gold in old painting." Here, her hair is just blond and puffy.