Marlowe (1969 film)
Encyclopedia
Marlowe is a neo-noir
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...

 movie starring James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

 as Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...

's detective Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler in a series of novels including The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Marlowe first appeared under that name in The Big Sleep published in 1939...

, and directed by Paul Bogart
Paul Bogart
Paul Bogart is an American television and film director. He directed episodes of the television series "Coronet Blue" in 1967 Get Smart and All In The Family from 1976 to 1979...

. The mystery film was written by Stirling Silliphant
Stirling Silliphant
Stirling Dale Silliphant was an American screenwriter and producer. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, moved to Glendale, California as a child, graduated from Hoover High School, and was educated at the University of Southern California...

 based on Chandler's 1949 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 The Little Sister
The Little Sister
The Little Sister is a 1949 novel by Raymond Chandler, the fifth in his popular Philip Marlowe series. The story is set in late 1940s Los Angeles.-Plot summary:...

. The supporting cast includes Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

, Gayle Hunnicutt
Gayle Hunnicutt
Gayle, Lady Jenkins , known by her birth name Gayle Hunnicutt, is an American actress.-Personal life:Hunnicutt was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Colonel Sam Lloyd Hunnicutt and Virginia Hunnicutt, and attended the University of California, Los Angeles. She worked as a fashion model...

, Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award....

, Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor
John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...

 and Jackie Coogan
Jackie Coogan
John Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...

.

The film foreshadowed James Garner's second Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 P.I.
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...

 character Jim Rockford
Jim Rockford
Jim Rockford is a fictional character on the television series The Rockford Files. The character, played by James Garner, is a struggling private investigator operating in Los Angeles....

 in The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files is an American television drama series which aired on the NBC network between September 13, 1974 and January 10, 1980. It has remained in regular syndication to the present day. The show stars James Garner as Los Angeles-based private investigator Jim Rockford and features Noah...

. Many of the wisecracking Marlowe lines incorporated by Silliphant for this movie were taken directly from Chandler's novel.

Stirling Silliphant is best known for his Academy-award winning screenplay for In the Heat of the Night (film) (1967) and creating the television series Route 66
Route 66 (TV series)
Route 66 is an American TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod...

and Naked City
Naked City (TV series)
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format....

. The movie also introduced martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

 legend Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

 to many American film viewers.

The film's title song Little Sister (named after the novel from which the film is derived) is provided by the group Orpheus
Orpheus (band)
Orpheus is a rock band from Worcester, Massachusetts that enjoyed popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s.In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the avant garde band. Original members included guitarist/vocalists Bruce Arnold and Jack McKennes, bass guitarist Eric "The Snake"...

.

Plot

Los Angeles private-eye Philip Marlowe is trying to locate the brother of his new client, a woman named Orfamay Quest. The trail leads to two men who deny any knowledge of the brother's existence. Both are soon killed by an ice pick, so Marlowe deduces that there's much more to this than a simple missing-person case.

Marlowe's path crosses that of a blackmailed movie star, Mavis Wald, and her friend, exotic dancer Dolores ("With an O"). A mobster sends karate expert Winslow Wong to bust up Marlowe's office and warn him off the case, while Lieutenant French also cautions the detective to stay out of the police's way.

Hand-to-hand combat between the martial-arts artist and detective leads to Wong's plummeting to his death off a balcony. Several more die along the way in a case that leads to a final shootout during a striptease.

Cast

  • James Garner
    James Garner
    James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

     as Philip Marlowe
    Philip Marlowe
    Philip Marlowe is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler in a series of novels including The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Marlowe first appeared under that name in The Big Sleep published in 1939...

  • Gayle Hunnicutt
    Gayle Hunnicutt
    Gayle, Lady Jenkins , known by her birth name Gayle Hunnicutt, is an American actress.-Personal life:Hunnicutt was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Colonel Sam Lloyd Hunnicutt and Virginia Hunnicutt, and attended the University of California, Los Angeles. She worked as a fashion model...

     as Mavis Wald
  • Carroll O'Connor
    Carroll O'Connor
    John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...

     as Lt. Christy French
  • Rita Moreno
    Rita Moreno
    Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award....

     as Dolores Gonzáles
  • Sharon Farrell
    Sharon Farrell
    Sharon Farrell is an American television and film actress.-Career:Born as Sharon Forsmoe in Sioux City, Iowa, she made her acting debut in the 1959 film Kiss Her Goodbye...

     as Orfamay Quest
  • William Daniels
    William Daniels
    William David Daniels is an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild . He is known for his performance as Dustin Hoffman's father in The Graduate , as John Adams in 1776, as Carter Nash in Captain Nice, as Mr. George Feeny in ABC's Boy Meets World, as the voice of KITT in...

     as Mr. Crowell
  • H.M. Wynant
    H.M. Wynant
    H.M. Wynant is an American film and television actor.Among his many television credits are appearances on shows such as Playhouse 90, Hawaiian Eye, The Wild Wild West, Perry Mason, Daniel Boone, Gunsmoke, Get Smart, Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible, and Dallas.One of his more memorable appearances...

     as Sonny Steelgrave
  • Jackie Coogan
    Jackie Coogan
    John Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...

     as Grant W. Hicks
  • Kenneth Tobey
    Kenneth Tobey
    Kenneth Tobey was an American stage, television, and film actor.-Early years:Born in Oakland, California, Tobey was headed for a law career when he first dabbled in acting at the University of California Little Theater...

     as Sgt. Fred Beifus
  • Bruce Lee
    Bruce Lee
    Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

     as Winslow Wong
  • Christopher Cary as Chuck
  • George Tyne as Oliver Hady
  • Corinne Camacho as Julie
  • Paul Stevens
    Paul Stevens (actor)
    Paul Stevens was an American film and television actor.Stevens played Colonel Charles R. Codman in the 1970 film Patton. He appeared in the 1960 film Exodus and the 1969 film Marlowe...

     as Dr. Vincent Lagardie
  • Roger Newman as Orrin Quest
  • Read Morgan
    Read Morgan
    Read Morgan is a former American actor whose longest-running role was as a United States Army cavalry officer in the 1960-1961 season of The Deputy, a western television series on NBC created by Norman Lear. Morgan appeared in thirty episodes as the one-eyed Sergeant Hapgood Tasker, recognized by...

     as Gumpshaw

Critical reception

The staff at Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

magazine gave the film a mixed review and wrote, "Raymond Chandler's private eye character, Philip Marlowe, is in need of better handling if he is to survive as a screen hero. Marlowe is a plodding, unsure piece of so-called sleuthing in which James Garner can never make up his mind whether to play it for comedy or hardboil. Stirling Silliphant's adaptation of The Little Sister comes out on the confused side, with too much unexplained action...Garner walks through the picture mostly with knotted brow, but Gayle Hunnicutt as the actress is nice to look at toward the end. Rita Moreno as a strip dancer delivers soundly, but a peeler does not a picture make."

Critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 panned the film in his review, writing, "But [Chandler's] books depend mostly on the texture and style of life in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, and on the cynical intelligence of Philip Marlowe. That's probably why Marlowe, the latest movie to be based on a Chandler book, is not very satisfactory. Even though director Paul Bogart shot on location, he has not quite captured the gritty quality of Chandler's LA. And James Garner, the latest Marlowe (after Robert Montgomery
Robert Montgomery (actor)
Robert Montgomery was an American actor and director.- Early life :Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery, Jr. in Beacon, New York, then known as "Fishkill Landing", the son of Mary Weed and Henry Montgomery, Sr. His early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was president of the New...

, Dick Powell
Dick Powell
Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...

 and Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

), is a little too inclined to play for light, wry, James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

-style laughs...detective movies have got to function at the level of plot, somehow, unless they star Bogart and are written by William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...

 and just brazen their way through. Marlowe isn't brazen enough. Somewhere about the time when the Chinese martial arts expert wrecks his office (in a very funny scene), we realize Marlowe has lost track of the plot, too."

External links

  • Marlowe film clip at Turner Classic Movies
    Turner Classic Movies
    Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...

    Media Room
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