jimddddd I wanted to enjoy HBO's mid-eighties attempt to revive Phillip Marlowe, but the series never quite worked for me. The producer's self-conscious attempt to recreate a time and place and style of film-making remained just that: self-conscious. What may have also thrown me off was that the first episode I watched, "The King in Yellow," begins with a disc jockey playing a twelve-inch vinyl LP, a format that Columbia Records introduced in 1948 for long-form music, such as classical and Broadway; pop music and the kind of jazz the DJ was playing came out that year on ten-inch LPs and didn't graduate to twelve-inch till around 1950-51. So naturally I'm thinking the story takes place in the early fifties, until the cars and a few other things make it obvious that the time is really a dozen years earlier. Why didn't somebody realize the guy should have been playing a 78-rpm record? You can find them at any Salvation Army shop. The whole point of recreating a period piece is that you have to get the period right and not make obvious, boneheaded mistakes. I was also struck by how poorly the filmmakers generally used Los Angeles, a city with many evocative old neighborhoods and wonderful buildings that haven't changed much in the last seventy years. One "King in Yellow" scene, shot at the tower apartments near the Hollywood Bowl where Eliot Gould's Phillip Marlow lived in Robert Altman's 1973 "The Long Goodbye," showed that somebody had the right idea, but maybe the low budget kept most of the action confined to sound stages, which are rarely convincing. Oh, and some of the actors were amateurish and the dialog was often weak. Since a real noir hound could have had great fun with this show, HBO's Marlowe seems more like a missed opportunity than anything else.

chall-5 As other reviewers have noted, the HBO Marlowe series consists of two different sequences. Shows 1-5 have great music, and a fine supporting cast as well as some novel plots. "The King is Yellow" is perhaps the best. Boothe is an excellent Marlowe and the period cars and sets are top notch.The second sequence, shows 6-11 lack the music and some of the production values present in the earlier episodes. Too bad. But the scripts and Boothe are still good.All 11 shows are now out as a 3-DVD boxed set for $20-$30 bucks from Gold Hill Entertainment. Video quality on the first 5 is not up to snuff, but this set is still worth having just to see Powers Boothe as Marlowe.

SylvesterFox007 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.

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.