Director and Producer: Howard Hawks
Screenwriters: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman
Cinematographer: Sidney Hickox
Music: Max Steiner
Studio: Warner Bros 1946
Main Acting: Humphrey Bogart
Phillip Marlowe is one of those iconic figures in film noir that is always associated with the genre. Humphrey Bogart is a popular actor forever recognized as a towering symbol in classic Hollywood. What would it mean if these two cultural titans could be fused together and released to a fascinated public? Well, in 1946 it happened, and we get the bonus of esteemed film director Howard Hawks pulling the strings. No less than three screenwriters worked on adapting Raymond Chandler’s novel of the same name. Everyone has heard of how convoluted and complex the proceedings became, with a slew of characters entering and departing the fray to dizzying effects. One popular story goes that no one had any idea who murders chauffeur Owen Taylor and even the famous author of the original work couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. The truth is that if one were looking for a neat and tidy tale of deception, crime, and double crosses, then this picture isn’t it. Move along to something more linear and narratively cohesive. The Big Sleep is all over the place, and is more worthy for the ride than the destination. The mystery is really just an excuse to marvel at the insane chemistry by Bogie and Lauren Bacall as they wise-crack and mouth double entendres all movie long.
Due to the draconian Hayes Office and Hollywood production code, many changes had to be made from the book before it could hit the big screen. The clear mention of pornography is relatively glossed over in the film, and only hinted at with references to Chinese dresses and such. Some characters in the book (Lundgren and Geiger) have a homosexual relationship which is completely discarded in the film. These two elements are only a few that Hawks had to shape and mold into something different. What he was very successful in accomplishing was giving the whole feature a decadent perverse mood that hung in the air like Vivian’s cigarette smoke after she willingly accepts a symbolic puff from eager Marlowe. The movie really proves the penchant many film noirs have for allowing a pent-up sexuality to pervade every crevice and corner crack. It’s amazing to see how often Marlowe has women throwing themselves at his feet just asking to copulate whenever he feels ready. Hawks makes Bogie’s Marlowe a superhero/movie star-type persona who is not only cool under pressure but smooth with the ladies. For my money, this is Hawks’ best film by a considerable margin. He plays up to all the emerging noir tropes like he had some clairvoyant understanding of this yet unnamed movement that was slowly forming, and was able to produce maximum milage from them.
The big question many noir fans always ask and debate over is which Marlowe was better and how were they different. Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye seems so radically apart that it almost begs to sit outside of such discussions. The Lady In The Lake is an experiment gone epically wrong in almost every possible manner, while John Brahm’s The Brasher Doubloon is so seldomly seen that it remains practically invisible. The classic Marlowe thus rests between Bogart’s and Murder My Sweet‘s Dick Powell’s take. The latter is lighter and in many respects the nobler figure. Perhaps due to Bogart’s style of acting and his worn, craggy face, his characters seem to automatically take a darker turn and more ambiguous motivations. Dick Powell was after all, a song and dance man in his previous incarnation, and his Marlowe has a dancer’s grace that comes bursting throughout that particular film. At the end of The Big Sleep, our hero surely does get his hands dirty in a way that does not seem befitting an absolutely upstanding protagonist. He basically has Eddie Mars killed, and it doesn’t feel like a stretch to say that there is a certain similarity to what Elliot Gould accomplishes at the conclusion of that respective Altman picture. A rather corrosive and uncomfortable ending leaves us with a feeling that Marlowe is not exactly riding off into the sunset. There are demons lurking within, gnawing at his damaged soul. Seeing the subtle changes Marlowe goes through in each noir makes crowning one example as “definitive” too hard to call. I say the triple threat of Bogart, Powell, and Gould forms a perfect trilogy that all add up to Philip Marlowe’s enduring appeal for noir aficionados.
The Big Sleep has two different versions available for viewing. The 1945 version is clearly inferior and was later beefed up by Hawks in 1946 to further stress the sizzling wordplay by the real life couple of Bacall and Bogart. Chandler later mentioned that Martha Vickers (who plays Bacall’s sister Carmen) basically outshined Bacall in their scenes together and thus was mostly edited out of the picture. I’m not sure how much of this was true and if any concrete evidence exists, but Vickers’ few scenes really sparkle with radiant sexual charm and effectiveness. She along with Elisha Cook Jr. add superb supporting turns that contribute further to the abundance of thrills within. Every technical aspect is rendered perfectly for what amounts to a major studio work that is a far cry from the average-B noir. This is an A-picture spectacle with pulp roots that fuse together like the properties of water and gives the genre an essential compound of celluloid rapture. The private-eye film is one of those cornerstones of noir, and here we have a leading example.
Held back from release due to Warner’s wanting to get all their war-themed films out before they became obsolete, The Big Sleep made its first appearance two years later in a improved final product that boasted one of Bogart’s best performances. I could write paragraph after paragraph espousing my love for every element within, but really seeing it is what’s important. Anyone who hasn’t is truly missing out.
You are not alone Maurizio in contending that this is Hawks’ best film.
THE BIG SLEEP may well be the most ceaselessly discussed film noir property of them all, perhaps even more dissected than THE MALTESE FALCON, DOUBLE INDEMNITY and OUT OF THE PAST, and the very ambiguity that is it’s most appealing aspect lends itself to endless interpretation. As Chandler himself doesn’t even know who killed Owen Taylor, I won’t venture a guess here, though I am certainly not comfortable with the idea that no one killed him, just as the suicide speculation seems unacceptable too.
I do know of course that because THE BIG SLEEP was made during the oppressive Hays Code period that certain story/character elements from Chandler’s novel were altered for the film. e.g. In the film, Joe Brody is killed by Carol Lundgren who believes he killed Geiger. In the novel, Lundgren is Geiger’s homosexual lover, a detail which is never alluded to in the film.
THE BIG SLEEP does contain the sexiest and wittiest dialogue ever written for a detective film, and the world that is showcased here is deliciously fascinating: a world of nymphomaniacs, blackmailers, drug dealers, liars, porographers and murderers. The corrosive Los Angeles that is on display here is brilliantly translated by Howard Hawks from Chandler’s novel.
But in the end, it’s the continued inability to figure things out that make this cryptic work so alluring. When neither Hawks nor Chandler know the answers, how pray tell could we?
Your unabated streak of excellent reviews continues with this fascinating assessment.
Maybe my noir bias should be taken with a grain of salt Sam, in declaring The Big Sleep as Hawks’ best film. As you know, similar with John Ford, I don’t agree with the exalted perch these directors get placed on by most movie lovers. This picture though is an absolute favorite…
One of my all-time favorite films (and I don’t have much more to add than that “brilliant” sentence).
I’m with you that it’s hard to pick between Bogart, Powell, and Gould in their portrayals of Marlowe. I’ve always really loved Gould in the Altman film, though he does kind of have an advantage in being able to homage and play off the known personas of Bogart and Powell. Perhaps it’s just that his Marlowe is so direly cynical, more in line with the character from the books.
Curious — though I’ve not seen the movies, I know that Robert Mitchum played Marlowe in the 70′s in a few films — wondering if you had seen those and where he might slot in amongst the other Marlowes. He seemed to have that perfect face/demeanor to play the role.
Troy I have seen both of Mitchum’s Marlowe turns and am not a huge fan of either. The problem is that they are both inferior products to classic era films that didn’t need remakes. I failed to mention them in my piece because I don’t find them essential (or as out and out bad as Lady In The Lake). I’m glad you like Gould and The Long Goodbye which is one of my favorite films of the 70′s, neo noir or not.
I’m not surprised to see The Big Sleep placed at No. 8 in your Noir countdown. But, like Night of the Hunter – another movie that placed quite high in your countdown, I’m not a big fan of this either, despite the enormous fame that precedes and follows it.
One reason for my not being a big fan of this film might be that I’d read the book before I’d watched the film. The novel by Chandler is one of my favourites. Had I not read the book, I might have liked the film more; unfortunately, the film simply failed to match the power and brilliance of the novel. Moreover I felt the director at times played to the gallery perhaps to draw upon the Bogart-Bacall affair which I guess was a sizzling thing for movie goers then.
As for the comparison you’ve drawn with the other famous Marlowe film, viz. Murder, My Sweet, I’d say Bogart was the better Marlowe of the two (though Dick Powell, too, was really good), but I felt the latter was a better film adaptation of the corresponding Chandler novel (Farewell My Lovely) than this one. Since it too had nearly as labyrinthine a plot as his The Big Sleep, so the excuse of having to compress Chandler’s dense plot to film shouldn’t hold for the Hawks film. The Hays Code issue, though, is a genuine one, though here too one might say that a number of film noirs then did deal with controversial themes, and stretched the draconian code to its limit and even at times subtly bypassed it, without necessarily blatantly breaking it.
Anyway, this is my humble opinion, and I know not many would agree with what I’ve said here
I think I vaguely remember you expressing a similar opinion on Dave’s countdown about your reservations of The Big Sleep Shubs. I saw the film first so that may be the difference. Still I never validate a picture’s worth against the book, as they are exclusively separate entities that should be judged apart. I completely disassociate Chandler’s work when watching the film when it comes to merit. I mention the aspects that differ due to censorship and how filmmakers had to skirt such matters, but I leave everything else out to tackle the movie on its own terms.
Great choice. I revere this film, so dense, murky, druggy, impenetrable, one of Hawks’s masterpieces.
And Martha Vickers, best nympho in Hollywood film, hands down.
I love her refrain ‘You’re cute,’ even to the corpse, ‘He’s cute, too.’
Did Juliette Lewis steal Vickers’ thumb-sucking bit when she played the daughter in Scorsese’s remake of ‘Cape Fear.’ I think maybe she did, with that mouthful of fingers.
Re the various Marlowe incarnations, Powell isn’t worthy enough to light Bogie’s cigarette. But Gould is another story, mumbling, shuffling, disoriented, playing at being clueless when all the time he’s as sharp as a tack. It’s a great, underplayed performance.
Once again, I doff my ski cap, Mr. R.
Martha Vickers sure does well in her smallish role. You brought up something that I wondered about myself in reference to Juliette Lewis’ thumb sucking. Remember that Lewis may have been directed by Scorsese to do that bit (as he is a huge noir fan) and might have been giving audiences a subtle nod to a classic film he admired. I cannot agree with your dismissal of Powell. In my book his Marlowe is the equal of Bogie and can not only light Bogie’s cigarette but his cigar as well!!! I concur that Gould is indeed a great Marlowe. Three wonderful movies, with three great variations. Marlowe has been well represented in cinematic history to be sure…
No love for Powers Booth? shame…
While I like this movie it doesn’t seem to have enough between the ears to have me keep coming back. I remember when I initially saw it, I thought Faulkner! Hawks! then thud. It certainly deserves placement on any Noir countdown as it’s such a hallmark touch tone film of the genre. It just doesn’t do a lot for me, crazy I know. Hell, MURDER MY SWEET I’m the same way. Lots of style and cracking dialogue, but it amounts to just a little more then a smarmy Bond film.
Faulkner does have great Noir in him though, one just needn’t leave a library to find it.
I don’t see the Bond connection at all. Never been a fan of any of those films. The stylized world that Marlowe inhabits is not remotely similar in my view. What is between the ears of those two particular noirs is the very essence of film noir that will always allow me to come back.
By the Bond comment I mean, a formula. Like the slasher, or the Bond, or the non-philosophical Noir. They’re all different formulas, but all rely on formulas to work. Which is more then OK of course.
What is interesting to me is that you don’t love the early Tarantino’s, that rely on snappy dialogue and character, but you do love the old Noir’s. It’s clearly a sensibility issue that you have which, I don’t know, makes this countdown quite a bit of fun.
Truth be told I did like the first two Tarantino’s back in the day. Now in hindsight it seems like a irritable formula he employs for his dialogue in every lackluster film. I find it all so tired and off putting that I can’t view those films the same anymore. For me he killed the vitality by recycling and rehashing the same tone for all his work. The big strike against Tarantino is also that it all seems so forced and self consciously hip. Something like Murder My Sweet feels more sincere and not crafted by some nerdy type trying to look cool. The dialogue in those old classics don’t stick out like a sore thumb. They are more easily imbued within the structure and not like someone shouting from the back trying to get noticed.
(I’m hesitant to get into this as I don’t want to turn this into a Tarantino thread, but) It’s difficult to lump all his films together. The hip freshness of PULP FICTION works, and probably always will. It’s a definite zeitgeist film, something like DEATH PROOF is beyond showy. At times I watch it and think it incredibly arrogant and dreadful, but then I do remember it was a thrill in the theater.
(Bringing the discussion back to the topic at hand) This is where I do/did enjoy THE BIG SLEEP and MURDER MY SWEET, the lack of artistry I feel the films show in concept and overall philosophy are counterbalanced with just the thrill of language and script construction and I understand these to be definite skills. Unfortunately for me when viewing films like these I can’t get past the knowledge that there are writers who are crafty and dynamic AND political/conceptual/philosophical (I’m actually doing a personal Harold Pinter marathon as we speak). It all just comes down to taste.
But, something like Hawks RIO BRAVO is pretty much all show, but it’s one of the greats IMHO. I actually have read it’s Tarantino’s favorite (or top 3) film of all time. So there ya go.
And it is important to note, if there is a formula that Tarantino employs it’s definitely one he invented and mastered. That’s where he’s an artist to be respected. Most directors/artists can’t claim that, let alone have to face the charge that their later stuff became tired on said created formula.
A bravura review of the film that really catches the essence of it. I felt that you’d turned over the film numerous times in your mind over time.
Very quotable too., such as;
“Every technical aspect is rendered perfectly for what amounts to a major studio work that is a far cry from the average-B noir. This is an A-picture spectacle with pulp roots that fuse together like the properties of water and gives the genre an essential compound of celluloid rapture.”
Don’t agree with your view of the ’70s ‘Farewell My Lovely’, which for me had a marvellously smoky ’40s atmosphere and a terrific lead in Mitchum. Not as spectacular as the 1944 film, but full of other virtues.
What your view on the Powers Booth Marlowe show and the black Marlowe from the film noir anthology TV show ‘Fallen Angels’?
I just find Mitchum’s Farewell My Lovely to be unnecessary. It is better than The Big Sleep remake, but both hold no special place in my heart. The Powers Booth Marlowe show has completely faded from my mind. I need to catch up with that again. To be honest I am not sure I have even seen all of it. I am preparing to see if it can be included on Netflix for further viewing. The black Marlowe I am unfamiliar with…
I agree that Powell does a fine job; the perfect Marlowe lies somewhere between his and Bogart’s characterizations. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to stomach the Altman/Gould/Leigh Brackett revisionist approach. They seem almost contemptuous of Marlowe, as though his weariness at being the Last Boy Scout (and this may be completely wrongheaded, but hasn’t Bruce Willis been working on his Marlowe throughout his career?) were a complaint that no one wanted to hear any longer in the ’70s, The Little Decade That Couldn’t. Gould’s constant near-smirk doesn’t quite do it for me. I’d rather watch Stacy Keach’s turn on the old ’80s HBO series. (Then again, in terms of physicality and low-key doggedness, ol’ Jim Garner figured out Marlowe–first in Marlowe in ’69, then The Rockford Files. Phil gets around.)
I love Gould’s take in The Long Goodbye. It surly is contemptuous, but that is sort of the point. You have to have a certain disposition to accept that traditional noir gets trampled on a bit by Altman. A little self loathing is needed…
Oh, I get it; Chandler himself is good at this–at more than one point in the (later?) books, Marlow all but admits he’s in a noir, complaining that “everyone’s hard-boiled these days.” And more than that, I’m the first to see efforts to judge films by their sources as an indulgence; I’d rather the twain stayed twain–you want something “just like the book”? Read the book. But as long as I’m indulging (full disclosure: Chandler is one of my favorite American writers), I’ll call you on the contempt-is-the-point argument. It’s like defending techno music’s monotonous quality by saying it’s supposed to be monotonous. Feh. (Besides, I already got enough self-loathing without Elliot freakin Gould chiming in.) Thanks for a great post–and site. I have to say, Wonders is the perfect relief from the snark-mongering at MUBI.
I agree. Gould is the perfect modernist anti-hero, revolted by traditional society, immoral (Gould kills Terry Lennox), unrepentant, nonreligious, existential, for in the age of nuclear bombs the word ‘future’ has no meaning.
His Marlowe is always unafraid even when common sense would tell him to be afraid for his life, because human life has little value in the postwar era of instant annihilation.
None of this is overt in ‘The Long Goodbye,’ but contemporary anxieties have made Gould/Marlowe the man he is and, as Altman shows us, it ain’t real pretty and it sure isn’t glamorous.
That is, I agree with Maurizio
Oh, man: not Stacy Keach on the HBO series, but Powers Booth! I should learn to read all the comments–or consult imdb more–before opening my yap. Why did I have Keach in my head? Because he played Mike Hammer in a U.S. series in the late ’90s. Sorry about that.
Undoubtedly a great film, but not one of my favourites by Hawks… I must admit I don’t always enjoy it as much as I should, much though I love Bogie and Bacall’s scenes together, because I can’t stop myself trying to follow the plot, and inevitably get lost in it. Last time I watched this I literally had to go and lie down afterwards! I haven’t seen the 1945 version which explained the plot, but it would be interesting to compare it – the BFI recently showed both versions during their Hawks retrospective and I know there is also a DVD which includes both.
Ahh Judy you need to let the plot go a bit. Its all about the ride… I’m not a huge Hawks fan so this is by far my favorite of his. Red River is decent, just can’t get over the blatant John Ford rip.
Thanks, Maurizio. Glad you like Red River – must say I am a big Hawks fan, so I keep changing my favourites, but that one is well up there. I know I should let the plot go in The Big Sleep, but I just find it really hard to do that, which is a failing in me rather than the film.
Maurizio, it’s funny how the phrase “traditional noir” does not seem an oxymoron. I agree, of course, that we all know what you mean–but isn’t it a shame that, like all heresies, noir became dogma? Hm. I may be convincing myself that The Long Goodbye isn’t so far off the mark after all: It simply attempts to reclaim noir’s value as a transgressive form. OK–but I still want to slap that look off Gould’s puss.
Remember traditional noir is in the eye of the beholder anyway. We all have our own definitions on what constitutes such a phrase. I don’t think the movement ever became dogma, just people trying to better define it’s boundaries. The Long Goodbye attacks noir less than the figure of Marlowe in reality. I should of probably mentioned that in my above comment. The chivalrous detective is just as screwed up and confused as the people around him. The 70′s were not the 40′s anymore, and that was Altman’s main point.
Amen.
In the age of nuclear anxieties and floundering religious ideals, the leap between the Godard/Belmondo antihero in “Breathless” and the Altman/Gould/Marlowe P.I. is very short.
The cultural shifts from 1946 to 1959 to 1973 were enormous and that’s why Altman felt compelled to offer up his revisionist take, much to the horror of Chandler purists.
Fidelity to the original story would have made for a hopelessly dated film, an rogue’s gallery of waxwork figures, irrelevant and unintentionally comic — kind of like the remake of “Murder, My Sweet” in 1975 with Mitchum(“Farewell, My Lovely”) which comes dangerously close to camp as it recreates the hardboiled patois and the seamy atmospherics of 1940s Los Angeles. It’s embalmed, an homage, faithful to all the details of the genre but hoplessly irrelevant in the mid-70s.
Marlowe had to murder (not just kill) Lennox, and Altman has stated that he wouldn’t have made “The Long Goodbye” any other way.
mark s.: Don’t get me wrong: I’m not looking for homage–if I am, I prefer it inside-out, like The Hudsucker Proxy. And I don’t need recreations of Chandler–or any other source material. But I don’t think Altman made a better movie than Hawks/Bogart or Dmytryk/Powell. But movies that strain to “reflect their times” make me cringe as much as the ones that seek to recreate others’. I guess I like Altman best in dream-mode–Three Women, even Quintet. Once he started telling me how to think about my present–I was 17 when I saw The Long Goodbye (and liked it, especially the depiction of the bad guys and Sterling Hayden’s excesses–but not Gould’s moping or the ham-handed bullying of the end)–I felt he was manipulating a very real mid-Nixon angst to little or no effect.
Sorry, Maurizio; your original post is about much more than Altman. I just wanted one more word. I’ll let you, mark s., have the last one, if you like. Disagreeing with you is helping me see my position more clearly–actually, you’re helping me see the shifts it needs to make.
Just in case these written discussions lead to any misinterpretations Paul, I do think that The Big Sleep and Murder My Sweet are better than The Long Goodbye (not by much though and very close to equal). I just think the Altman film is that third Marlowe picture I find to be essential and achieving masterpiece status.
OK, I promise: One more comment, then I’m done.
This discussion makes me smile fondly because a good friend of mine (the best person I know with whom to discuss film) and I have been arguing about The Long Goodbye for more than 20 years–actually, we stopped a long time ago, one of many easy truces: After all, he introduced me to Ozu’s films and helped me admit I liked Westerns after all. So thanks for a little personal nostalgia.
Oh, and the best Gould revisionist noir is The Silent Partner. Glad to get that off my chest. I’ll stop bothering everyone now.
Holy Cow Paul I just watched The Silent Partner yesterday. I am no fan of that film. Someone on either IMDB or another blog said that it looks like a Colombo episode and I happen to agree lol. I was disappointed by that one immensely. It seems to me that Gould is sleepwalking through the whole picture…
Paul
Do you like your crime/noir straight up or shaken (satirized/viciously debunked)? I prefer the latter. I guess it’s all in the taste buds. lol
For hard-bitten realism, “The Maltese Falcon” is my favorite prewar crime picture (film noir is a big tent – neonoir, etc, – so I just call it the ‘crime’ genre). For more crime satire, there’s Huston’s unbeatable ‘Beat the Devil,’ another favorite of mine.
Count me as another SILENT PARTNER fan (S. York… mmmmm), and Maurizio is right, Gould is sleepwalking through it. Which is sort of the point with him in that era. Look at LITTLE MURDERS, LONG GOODBYE, etc. he looks half awake in all of those but it’s definitely what he’s going for, this sort of post-60′s wake up to the realities of not changing a thing. Not really what Maurizio meant by the comment, but it’s sort of a compliment.
I also think THE CALIFORNIA SPLIT is fun as hell.
I love California Split as well. Being one who dabbles in the art of poker, I know those kind of empty feelings Altman is getting at. Forever chasing a rush that never leaves you fulfilled, no matter the wins or loses. For me Gould has a swagger in Split and Goodbye that is completely missing in Partner. In that Canadian film the effort seems to be totally lacking.
mark s. I’ll admit I like my noir straight up. While there’d be no art without irony–maybe no nothing; it seems to lie at the root of things–I place satire just about where the Greeks did: essential, but lesser. That’s why Beat the Devil is so irresistible–but not a model for a great noir. Even The Maltese Falcon (movie, not book–although they’re pretty close) knows that one can assume a distanced wolfish grin at It All for only so long. And while irony has its instructive sting, a straight shot burns all the way down–with of course the added irony that it’s the drinker who decided to take a swig in the first place.
Maurizio, I must’ve missed some video-nasty Colombo episodes! (Besides, what’s so bad about Colombo?) As for sleepy Gould: Didn’t Altman (here we go again) refer to Marlowe as “Rip van Marlowe”? In any case, Gould is best when he’s nodding off, so I see this as a plus. And Christopher Plummer goes all the way. Besides, Susannah York, yes?
Well Rip Van Marlowe in the sense that he seems to have slept through the cultural shifts of the era. Gould’s performance is far from subdued overall.
Point taken.
And you know, in the beginning all I wanted to talk about was Dick Powell, how he surprised me in that picture, pulling it off as though he weren’t so light and trim. And the supporting cast: Mike Mazurki as Moose Malloy–only Victor McLaglen could’ve done a better job. And Otto Kruger as Jules Amthor, a languid scorpion. I have a real affection for this film; an excellent choice.
(By the way, as bad as the Mitchum Marlowe pictures are, I have to admit his performance hits the right notes. Wish they were better pictures.)
Yeah I really love Dick Powell as Marlowe also. Like I wrote in my piece, it is a sentimental favorite for me. At one point it actually was in the top ten for this countdown.
The more I mull this over, the more I thought about Marlowe’s famous extended inner dialogue in The Little Sister; the good folks at filmsnoir.net stepped up to help with a “noir poetry” excerpt:
Point taken.
Maurizio said,”The big question many noir fans always ask and debate over is which Marlowe was better and how were they different.
Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye seems so radically apart that it almost begs to sit outside of such discussions…”
I have never watched Altman’s version…Of Marlowe.
“The Lady In The Lake is an experiment gone epically wrong in almost every possible manner…”
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you, here because I like this film and actor Robert Montgomery’s portrayal Of Marlowe, and the POV camera work too!
“…while John Brahm’s The Brasher Doubloon is so seldomly seen that it remains practically invisible.
Unfortunately, I have only watched “The Brasher Doubloon” only once, but due to very poor picture quality it was very difficult to keep-up with the goings-on in the film.
The classic Marlowe thus rests between Bogart’s and Murder My Sweet‘s Dick Powell’s take…”
Maurizio, I don’t judge (nor do I compare) each actor [Bogart, Powell, George Montgomery and Robert Montgomery] portrayal Of Philip Marlowe’s character.
Therefore, I can’t be included as part Of the many film noir fans who debate over which [Phillip] Marlowe was the best Of the several actors that portrayed Chandler’s Marlowe.
Therefore, in earnest I couldn’t tell you which actor portrayal Of or perfor-mance that I like the best.
By the way, Tony D’Ambra, also pointed out similar points that you pointed out in your review Of Chandler’s“The Big Sleep” too when he was a guest on my blog.
Hi! Maurizio…
Once again, a well-written review and just like Hawks’ film “The Big Sleep” you, ask a lot Of questions that is up to the readers, to answer…
Thanks, for sharing!
DeeDee
For some reason I don’t think you would like The Long Goodbye Dee Dee. It really revises film noir and the idea of what Marlowe is/represents. I can’t fathom what you see in Lady In The Lake lol. I find it to be such a tedious failed experiment that I don’t think I have even been able to sit through the whole thing in one sitting. Still if you like it than that is a great thing. I think I saw the same print of Brasher Doubloon as you. Horrible visual quality. I know it was restored by Fox at some point. I think it ran into some rights issues and is currently in limbo. Eddie Mueller supposedly recorded a commentary for it.
To chime in Ayer after the fact, I’m with Paul here on The Long Goodbye. More or less – I like the film more than he does but I agree its notion of ‘updating’ Marlowe and Chandler is at least in part misguided. I think it’s telling that Altman never read the full novel – because his notions of upending the source seem to have more to do with popular generalizations about the source than with the source itself. Frankly, I find Altman’s major changes to the plot a step BACK rather than a step forward; the novel’s coda is far more poignant, mature, and powerful than the film’s rather glib conclusion. The Sterling Hayden performance is great and the Dr. Verringer and Marty Melendez reboots are actually improvements on the originals but the central feature of the story, Marlowe’s relationship to Terry Lennox, is more fleshed-out and compelling in Chandler’s hands than Alrman’s and Brackett’s – and has far more to say, ironically, about Marlowe being a fish put of water and man out of time than anything in the movie which is rather on-the-nose and obvious in that matter. It shouldn’t be a matter of upending convention because in many ways that was what Chandlet was doing in the first place. Yes he helped to create new conventions in the process but a) he was already subverting those in The Long Goodbye novel – in ways Altman and Brackett’s hardly seemed to appreciate and b) even those original ‘conventions’ were misunderstood or under appreciated – too often the Marlowe prototype is seen as merely hard boiled or wisecracking but the most important features, the self-conscious sense of honor and the tragic world-weariness, don’t receive the recognition they should. In short I’m not sure what the ’73 film thinks it’s subverting is even there.