Marlowe (film)

Marlowe is a 1969 American neo-noir film[2] starring James Garner as Raymond Chandler's private detective Philip Marlowe. Directed by Paul Bogart, the film was written by Stirling Silliphant based on Chandler's 1949 novel The Little Sister.

Marlowe
Theatrical release poster
Directed byPaul Bogart
Produced bySidney Beckerman
Gabriel Katzka
Screenplay byStirling Silliphant
Story byNovel The Little Sister:
Raymond Chandler
StarringJames Garner
Gayle Hunnicutt
Carroll O'Connor
Rita Moreno
William Daniels
Music byPeter Matz
CinematographyWilliam H. Daniels
Edited byGene Ruggiero
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • September 19, 1969 (1969-09-19) (Germany)
  • October 22, 1969 (1969-10-22) (U.S.)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget496,076 tickets (Spain/France)[1]

The supporting cast includes Bruce Lee, Gayle Hunnicutt, Rita Moreno, Sharon Farrell, Carroll O'Connor and Jackie Coogan.[3]

The film foreshadowed James Garner's second Los Angeles P.I. character Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files. Rita Moreno would also go on to co-star as a recurring character in the series.

Many of the wisecracking Marlowe lines incorporated by Silliphant for this movie were taken directly from Chandler's novel. Silliphant is best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplay for In the Heat of the Night (1967) and creating the television series Route 66 and Naked City.

This movie introduced martial arts legend Bruce Lee 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.

Plot

Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by a Kansas woman named Orfamay Quest, who desperately wants him to find her brother, Orrin. Marlowe follows Orrin's trail to a hotel, where he meets the desk clerk, Haven Clausen, and a guest named Grant W. Hicks, who both deny any knowledge of Orrin's whereabouts. After Marlowe has checked out Orrin's former hotel room, he finds Clausen murdered with an ice pick and a page torn out of the register book. Soon afterwards, Marlowe receives a call from Hicks, who nervously implores him to hold onto something for a day. When Marlowe arrives at his location, he finds Hicks with an ice pick buried in his neck and is confronted by a masked woman, who knocks Marlowe out and flees. Marlowe searches the room and finds a claim ticket for a photographic film, which he does not tell the police about. The police reveal that Hicks is a former mob runner. Later, when Marlowe views the pictures, he is confirmed in his belief that there is more to the case than a missing person.

Marlowe traces the masked woman to a movie star, Mavis Wald, and her friend, exotic dancer Dolores ("with an O") Gonzales. He suspects Wald being involved in the murder of a blackmailer who had photographs showing her having a rendezvous with mobster boss Sonny Steelgrave, and offers her his help, which she rejects. When Marlowe leaves her apartment, Steelgrave, whom Wald has contacted, has his henchmen beat up Marlowe, and then he sends kung fu expert Winslow Wong to buy or threaten Marlowe off the case. Police Lieutenant French also cautions the detective to stay out of the investigation. Marlowe refuses, and even provokes Steelgrave by socializing at the mobster's restaurant. Steelgrave instructs Wong to warn Marlowe off one last time, or else kill him. Wong leads Marlowe to the roof of the restaurant, but Marlowe lures Wong to the edge and taunts him into attempting to jump-kick him, causing Wong to leap over the edge to his death.

Marlowe visits Wald's advertisement agent, Crowell and, after much persuasion, gains his cooperation. With Crowell's backing, Marlowe gets Wald to reveal enough information that he is convinced neither she nor Steelgrave was responsible for either ice pick murder, however she refuses to tell him any more. Orfamay visits Marlowe at his home and tells him her brother is staying at the clinic of Dr. Vincent Lagardie. When Marlowe interviews Lagardie, the doctor denies any knowledge of the missing brother. Marlowe confronts the doctor with his suspicions that he is a longtime associate of mobsters and involved in the blackmail scheme, but while they are talking, Marlowe has been smoking from a drugged cigarette Lagardie had offered him. When Marlowe falls unconscious, Lagardie flees. Marlowe comes to during the night and, still groggy, searches the clinic. He hears gunshots and stumbles upon a mortally wounded Orrin. Marlowe finds a photograph that reveals that Wald, Orrin and Orfamay are siblings. This convinces Marlowe that Orrin was the blackmailer and murderer, though in league with another party.

Marlowe tracks Orfamay to the train station where she is waiting for a train to take her back to Kansas, and tells her of Orrin's death. Orfamay blames Marlowe for having taken too long to go looking for Orrin, and she alerts the police. Marlowe appeases Lieutenant French by promising to solve the case and to give the police credit for having done so. He returns to his office and destroys the pictures and the negatives, and then gets a visit from Dolores, who tells him that Wald wants to see him. During their ride to Steelgrave's mansion, Marlowe learns that Dolores and Steelgrave had at one time been romantically involved. Marlowe finds Steelgrave dead and a disconsolate Wald beside him; she tells him she killed Steelgrave because he had her brother killed.

In order to protect Wald's reputation, Marlowe sets things up to make it look as if Steelgrave committed suicide, though the police are not fooled. When Marlowe returns to his home, he finds Orfamay there searching it, but he tells her he has already destroyed the photographs and the negatives. Wald arrives too, and a heated confrontation between them reveals that Orfamay knew about Orrin's blackmailing scheme and wanted to stop him for his own safety – the reason for which she hired Marlowe – but that she had subsequently told Steelgrave, in return for one thousand dollars, where to find Orrin. Marlowe breaks up the fight and tells Orfamay to go back to Kansas. In a tender discussion with Wald, she admits she pretended to have killed Steelgrave to protect Orfamay, who she thought had killed him.

With Wald's secret safe, Marlowe meets up with Dolores at the club where she is working. Having pieced almost all the clues together, he confronts her with his suspicion that she was Orrin's partner in crime and once married to Dr. Lagardie. Still in love with Steelgrave, she wanted to force Wald away from him. Hicks and Clausen were murdered by Orrin because Hicks wanted to take over the scheme for his own profit, and the drug-addicted Clausen was too unstable. Dolores admits to everything but remains defiant, believing that Marlowe is too fond of Wald to tell the police what he knows. Marlowe phones the police and asks to speak to the homicide department. At that moment, just as Dolores's performance is nearing its climax, she is shot dead by Lagardie, who then kills himself. Before the police arrives, Marlowe leaves the club and drives away into the night.

Cast

Production

In 1968 only two Marlowe novels had not been filmed, The Little Sister and The Long Goodbye. In March 1967 it was announced Film rights to Little Sister were purchased by the team of Katza and Berne who had hired Stirling Silliphant to write a script; MGM would distribute.[4] In June Katza announced that he had also bought screen rights to The Long Goodbye and that filming on Little Sister would begin in September.[5] However filming was delayed.

In March 1968 it was announced a film would be made of The Little Sister starring James Garner with Paul Bogart to make his debut as director.[6] Garner had to plead his case to appear in the film after one MGM executive vetoed his role in the film.[7] Gayle Hunnicut's casting was announced in June.[8]

Filming started in July 1968.[7] It took place in Los Angeles. Stirling Silliphant said he was interested in writing the script "because here was a chance to write the classic Quest story" and it would get the writer "out of the social conscience bag I'm supposed to be in." Sillipant said he had to create "90% of the dialogue" because felt Chandler's original was "dated".[9]

In his memoirs Garner says he ad libbed the words "impertinent" and "baroque" in one scene when his character was describing wine because Gore Vidal had just referenced Garner's backside in the novel Myra Breckinridge as "impertinent" and "baroque".[10]

Reception

Box office

In Europe, the film sold 375,668 tickets in Spain and 120,408 tickets in France, for a total of 496,076 tickets sold in Spain and France.[1] The film's domestic box office performance in North America is currently unknown.

Critical reception

The film holds a score of 71% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 7 reviews.[11]

Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and said it was "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, Dick Powell and Humphrey Bogart), is a little too inclined to play for light, wry, James Bond-style laughs."[12] Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote that "Stirling Silliphant's screenplay follows too many styles, and Paul Bogart's direction follows too few to make a more than casually entertaining movie."[13] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "a muddled disappointment. The plot, or more exactly the three or four subplots, is bewildering."[14] Variety wrote, "Raymond chandler's private eye character, Philip Marlowe, is in need of better handling either producers Gabriel Katzka and Sidney Beckerman, scripter Stirling Silliphant or James Garner in title role, have provided, if he is to survive as a screen hero. 'Marlowe,' which MGM is releasing, is a plodding, unsure piece of so-called sleuthing in which Garner can never make up his mind whether to play it for comedy or hardboil. Silliphant's adaptation of author's 'The Little Sister' come[s] out on the confused side, with too much unexplained action."[15] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "fills that yawning gap between the blockbuster and the small-scale film of social consciousness in thoroughly satisfying fashion. Free from the giganticism of the first and the all-too-frequent pretensions of the second it is ideal escapist entertainment."[16] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a tolerable detective thriller provided you haven't read any of Raymond Chandler's novels or seen Howard Hawks' film version of 'The Big Sleep.' If you have, it will be natural to write off this film as a half-hearted, anachronistic attempt to revive the genre."[17] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Despite some crisp dialogue in Stirling Silliphant's screenplay, Chandler's novel The Little Sister suffers badly from glossy settings and modish direction ... And Marlowe himself seems a thoroughly synthetic creation—although Garner has a good line in 'cool', he has none of the heavy-lidded cynicism and crumpled charm with which Bogart made the part his own."[18]

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References
  1. Soyer, Renaud (28 January 2013). "Bruce Lee Box Office". Box Office Story (in French). Retrieved 30 June 2020.
  2. Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth; eds. (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd ed.). Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5
  3. Marlowe on IMDb.
  4. Arkin Is A Lonely Hunter: Alan Arkin Is a Lonely Hunter By A.H. WEILER. New York Times26 Mar 1967: 89.
  5. Bobby Morse to Co-Star Martin, Betty. Los Angeles Times 10 June 1967: b7.
  6. MOVIE CALL SHEET: 'Little Sister' on Schedule Martin, Betty. Los Angeles Times 12 Mar 1968: c13.
  7. Beaupre, Lee (May 15, 1968). "Rising Skepticism On Stars". Variety. p. 1.
  8. New Firm to Shoot 2 Films Martin, Betty. Los Angeles Times (1923-1995); Los Angeles, Calif. [Los Angeles, Calif]26 June 1968: g9.
  9. L.A. Landmarks Co-star in 'Little Sister' Film: L.A. Landmarks Thomas, Kevin. Los Angeles Times 15 Sep 1968: c18.
  10. Garner, James; Winokur, Jon (2011). The Garner Files: A Memoir. Simon & Schuster. p. 257.
  11. "Marlowe". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved April 29, 2019.
  12. Ebert, Roger (November 25, 1969). "Marlowe". Marlowe. Retrieved April 29, 2019.
  13. Greenspun, Roger (October 23, 1969). "Screen: In the Tradition of 'Marlowe'". The New York Times. 56.
  14. Siskel, Gene (November 25, 1969). "Marlowe". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 5.
  15. "Film Reviews: Marlowe". Variety. October 8, 1969. 30.
  16. Thomas, Kevin (November 6, 1969). Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 16.
  17. Arnold, Gary (November 8, 1969). "Cloudy Private Eye Without Flair". The Washington Post. C6.
  18. "Marlowe". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 36 (430): 241. November 1969.
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