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Overrated

A Masterpiece!

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Here is a talented cast of mostly TV people and a good Chandler Novel, The Sister's sort of out of place in the 1969 era of movies. People did not go to the theater to see this one. Bruce Lee's first screen role is basically the same as the film, both jump off the building together.I think the problem is the MGM film is so short that it does not have time to really put the novel into the script and create a true noir film. Garner's Marlowe would be okay if it had some more time to develop plot. This film comes off a 1960's assembly line of films that had plenty of recalls and only a few great films. There are small things about it to like. I mean fans of Ganer, Moreno, and O'Connor should be happy to see them in this and even Lee does get a few lines that are decent in a way too short role.What is interesting is the ending. It's like have a shooting and suicide at a strip club which is only vaguely referred to in the film, get the shooting over. Then have Marlowe (Garner) who barely gets out of the way of the shooting, leave in his car.It's almost like MGM just wanted out of the film, and just ended it abruptly.

Philip Marlowe (James Garner) is hired by Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell) to find her brother Orrin who had come to L.A. years ago. On the way, he finds a man murdered with an ice pick. Then he finds another body with an ice pick after getting knock down by a mysterious woman. Police detective Christy French (Carroll OConor) investigates. Marlowe discovers the mysterious woman is popular actress Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicut) and one of the dead man was developing compromising photos of her and Steelgrave. The ice pick stabbings are the trade mark of gangster Sonny Steelgrave (H.W. Wynant) and his men beats up Marlowe. Winslow Wong (Bruce Lee) comes in to rearrange Marlowe's office and keeps trying to buy him off for Steelgrave.James Garner is a great actor. He does have the charm which he used to great effect in 'The Rockford Files' years later. That's what this movie feels like. It has the quality and the feel of a TV show. That's what director Paul Bogart is more known for. The one thing missing is a hard-boiled cinematic style. It may have been a mistake to place this in the modern swinging 60's. At least, this never takes advantage of the natural discrepancies. There are way too many little problems. There isn't the usual scene when Marlowe gets hired and introduced to the audience. Even Bruce Lee is wasted. He gets two scenes of jumping around but nothing is ever allowed to land on Marlowe. Sure he has a bit of fun trashing the office but he takes a ridiculous flying leap off of a building. It's a close call and this is a miss by a hair.

"Take this back to your leader. Tell him you've met the last of the dying dynasty: the king of the fools, unassailably virtuous, invariably broke." - Marlowe "Marlowe" is an interesting neo-noir by director Paul Bogart. Based on Raymond Chandler's 1949 novel, "The Little Sister", the film transports Chandler's iconic gumshoe, Philip Marlowe, to 1960s Los Angeles.All the usual Chandleresque features are here – a noble, wisecracking detective, a convoluted murder mystery, startling revelations, double-crosses, attractive women who throw themselves at Marlowe etc etc – but there are a few new additions sprinkled about. Marlowe, for example, is given a stable love interest and so brushes aside all who attempt to seduce him. He's also always fashionably broke, privileging his righteous crusades above sex or money. Trinkets specific to the 1960s then pop up: Marlowe's on friendly terms with a gay neighbour, weed smoking hippies are on display and Marlowe has a brief and wholly ridiculous fight with martial artist Bruce Lee.The film lacks the atmosphere and psychic weight of the great noirs, but its script is nevertheless richer and better written than most detective dramas of the era. It also cleverly juggles two eventually intersecting plots. This incarnation of Marlowe is played by James Garner.7.9/10 – Worth one viewing. See Jacques Tourneur's "Nightfall".

This is a mish-mash where the original cynical Marlowe of the late 40s meets the laid-back and careworn private detective of the 60s. We move from all those shadows that dominated the noir films to the bright lights of the swinging 60s. And it doesn't really work; nor should it. To me, it comes over more as a satire on the originals with plenty of good one-liners and a surreal couple of scenes with Bruce Lee. The storyline is too complex to set out here and I suspect there will be many differing versions of just what the story actually is. Not that that matters too much as I think it may be better simply to see it as a satire or, perhaps, a parody.Gayle Hunnicutt was out of place although Rita Moreno maybe makes up for that. Garner is, well, Garner. See it as a curiosity rather than as something that is important or significant in the history of film.