MissSimonetta Though James Garner does a good job as Raymond Chandler's immortal private eye, Marlowe (1969) is just a passable mystery thriller. The pacing is a big sluggish and aside from Bruce Lee smashing up Garner's office, nothing about the movie sticks out in the mind. When it comes to post-classic Hollywood takes on Chandler, you're better off with The Long Goodbye or Farewell My Lovely, both from the 1970s.Marlowe is best as a time capsule of the late 1960s. The jazzy soundtrack, mod and hippie fashions, and the locales all reek of the period, and that was where most of this viewer's pleasure was found. If that's enough for you, then catch it on TCM whenever they play the thing.

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

seymourblack-1 In order to appeal to audiences in the late 1960s, a number of new and familiar elements were mixed together to create this updated version of Raymond Chandler's 1949 novel "The Little Sister". Predictably, there's a complicated plot that involves a missing person, blackmail and a number of murders, there's a bunch of characters that are generally corrupt and untrustworthy and there's plenty of sharp, witty and clever dialogue. Instead of the usual grittiness however, there's glossiness and bright colours replace the black and white look of earlier Marlowe movies. The creative cinematography of the past is replaced by a style that's much more contemporary but also by comparison, rather bland.In time-honoured style, Chandler's legendary detective is just as broke as ever and is rendered unconscious on more than one occasion as well as being hired by a number of different clients (as he was in "Murder, My Sweet"). This time around though, he's noticeably less cynical and hardboiled and much more affable and easy-going.Orfarmay Quest (Sharon Farrell) is the rather staid-looking young blonde from Kansas who hires Philip Marlowe (James Garner) to find her missing brother, Orinn. Marlowe's investigation leads him to a rundown hotel where the manager (who's more interested in sleeping than doing any work) gives him a key for Orinn's room. To his surprise, Marlowe discovers that Orinn is no longer there and the room is now occupied by a guy called Grant Hicks (Jackie Coogan). A second surprise awaits Marlowe, however, because as he leaves the hotel, he discovers that the manager's been stabbed to death with an ice-pick.Shortly after, Hicks calls Marlowe and wants to hire him. When Marlowe turns up at Hicks' new hotel, he gets knocked over the head by a mystery woman who promptly disappears leaving him in the room with Hicks who's been killed by someone who stabbed him with a similar ice-pick to the one which was used on the previous victim. Inside Hicks' toupee, Marlowe finds a ticket for some photos which he then collects from the shop where they'd been developed and discovers that they're compromising shots of a popular TV star called Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicutt) and a notorious gangster called Sonny Steelgrave (H.M. Wynant). Orinn and Hicks had clearly been involved in a scheme to blackmail Mavis Wald.Through his further investigations, Marlowe meets Mavis' best friend Dolores Gonzalez (Rita Moreno) and her ex-husband Dr Lagardie (Paul Stevens) and gradually becomes aware of the intricacies of the relationships between them and the various other characters in the case and this soon proves to be the key to solving the mystery surrounding who was responsible for the various murders."Marlowe" has a very light-hearted atmosphere and the comedy potential of many incidents is exploited to the full. A great example of this is the scene in which Bruce Lee as one of Steelgrave's henchmen, tries to bribe Marlowe and then trashes his office in spectacular style. The quality of the acting is very good throughout and James Garner brings a great deal of charm to his portrayal of Chandler's famous private investigator.

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.