Marlowe

Marlowe is one of those ambitious movies that attempt to bring out the dark gritty atmosphere that tends to be palpable in novels. Here, a director named Paul Bogart attempts to do the same for Chandler's Philip Marlowe. I was interested in this because of the Bogey reference as Humphrey Bogart plays an excellent Marlowe in The Big Sleep. But it turns out that Paul of the same name is no relation to Humphrey and it shows that his original name was Bogoff! The movie is not helped by the fact that the script is written by somebody named Stirling Sillphant (which also shows).

The storyline is standard shtick. Marlowe investigates something minor and stumbles across something major and it turns out that the minor and major are related. While James Garner who plays Marlowe has a good screen presences, the dialogues are generally tacky, the story line muddled and the direction almost random. The end result is an abysmal disaster and something of a travesty. What is notable is a (rather silly) cameo by Bruce Lee which piqued my interest. Oh, and in an attempt to bring the dark, gritty and seedy side of the Chandler books to the screen, there's a generous amount of skin exposed throughout.

Give it a miss unless you are interested in seeing a Batman/Green Hornet version of Bruce Lee or if you have a thing for James Garner. Or if you have a thing for bad movies, I guess :)