ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

blacknorth This rather curious series is a hybrid in more ways than one.A US-UK co-production, with the UK input coming from LWT, as far as I remember, it looks like a period Dempsey & Makepiece. It seems to have been shot on video stock which has degraded over the years or been damaged in storage. But, thankfully, that doesn't affect the viewing experience very much.Chandler's stories feature a number of different Private Detectives, of whom Marlowe is the most famous. But many of the original stories, from which these episodes are adapted, actually featured John Dalmas as the shamus, rather than Marlowe. As a reader of Chandler I was always mystified as to why Marlowe eclipsed Dalmas - the latter character seemed witter, surer, with more tragedy about him and less of the throwaway line. What we have in this series is many of the Dalmas stories given over to Marlowe. And, to be frank, it doesn't feel right - Marlowe doesn't have the intellectual equipment of Dalmas, and I think the scriptwriters recognised this and took some severe liberties with the plotting when making their adaptations. One compromise leads to another...Having said all that, the series is very enjoyable as it stands. Powers Boothe is good as Marlowe, more of the laconic thick-ear than the closet fist. The supporting actors are all fine and there are some very effective action set-pieces scattered throughout.Recommended. I feel sorry for Dalmas, though I know he'd shrug it off.

Fisher L. Forrest Really dedicated fans of Raymond Chandler may be disappointed that the writers for this series didn't see fit to stick to Chandler's stories without serious deviations. All eleven episodes either added characters, deleted characters, changed the stories to varying extents, or all of the above. Since I suspected this might be the case, having seen what was done to Edgar Allan Poe in a similar series on DVD recently, I made a point of re-reading each of the stories before viewing the movies. Only four of the episodes came moderately close to following the original story line: "Nevada Gas" (although this was not originally a Marlowe story), "Finger Man", "The King in Yellow" (also not a Marlowe story), and "Pickup on Noon Street" (not Marlowe either). Most of the stories used were not originally about Marlowe, but at least were about Johnny Dalmas, a Marlowe prototype.I suppose my view of the series is jaundiced by my long term enthusiasm for Raymond Chandler, having read the "canon" through at least half a dozen times since first meeting Philip Marlowe in FAREWELL MY LOVELY in 1943. Imagine my resentment when these writers presumed to "improve" on the master. As for the quality of what was produced as compared to what might have been produced if Chandler has been followed, it isn't "bad"; just not good enough. Powers Boothe clearly tries hard to be Marlowe, but he really doesn't fit my physical conception of the "good man who walks the mean streets". I pictured Marlowe as rather tall, well built, not fat but with sufficient bulk to over-awe the sleazy characters he went up against. Robert Mitchum filled the bill in THE BIG SLEEP. Burt Lancaster would have also if he had ever essayed the role. Kathryn Leigh Scott ("Annie Riordan") and Billy Kearns ("Lt. Violets M'Gee", as Chandler spelled the name) impressed me most favourably. You won't be bored watching this series, but if you are a really fanatic Chandler addict, you will be chagrined.

halben-1 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.

ncrattlersnake He has the Raymond Chandler down perfectly and brings him to life in a more interesting and exciting way. I hope he does a few more. A more real life type of hero for all times. A real thinker and a tuff guy to boot.