Patrick,
Re your comment below:
"It would be interesting to see how Bogart might have played
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. It's too bad no one in Hollywood saw
Phillip Marlowe as a franchise opportunity. Its one of the
frustrating aspects of this best of the original hard boiled
detectives."
Couldn't disagree more. Aside from the fact that Chandler
wound up making more money by selling them piecemeal to
different studios than he could have selling all the books,
and the character, to one studio, the way it turned out, we
are now able to see several different interpretations of the
characters, in several different studio styles, all of them
stylish "A" productions.
If it had been a franchise, Marlowe would have just been one
more character featured in a series of comparatively
low-budget "B's," like Charlie Chan, Mike Shayne, Torchy
Blaine, or Hildegard Withers, with entries ultimately
deteriorating over time as Chandler material was used up and
studio hacks turned out origina scripts to order, until
finally the series hit Poverty Row (recall that Chan wound up
at Monogram and Shayne at PRC).
As it is, we get to have an interesting debate over whether
Powell or Bogart was the better Marlowe, whether RKO's
signature noir effects trumps the muscular
straightforwardness of Warner Brothers, etc.
Even the movies that don't work as well as MMS and TBS have
their moments and are worth discussing.
Robert Montgomery, it's safe to say, is the favorite Marlowe
of very few people, yet he deserves props for being one of
the few actors who could carry off two such different
characters as Lord Peter Wimsey as Phil Marlowe. And if, as a
director, his "subjective camera gimmick is ultimately just
that, a gimmick that draws attention to itself rather than
enhancing the story, it's nevertheless a brave attempt, and
it wouldn't have been possible if it was just one more
assembly line production from the "B" division of MGM, like
the ANDY HARDY movies. Moreover, the script (the only Marlowe
film script Chandler ever worked on) is surprisingly good,
and has some recognizable Chandler touches, the depiction of
the pulp magazine business has the authentic scent of an
inside look (whether this was Chandler's contribution of
Steve Fisher's I don't really know) and there are some fine
performances, like Lloyd Nolan's as the brutal Bay City cop,
Degarmo, and Jane Meadows as the femme fatale.
Even THE BRASHER DOUBLOON is a better, more watchable film,
with nice gritty touches, than it would have been as an entry
in a "B" franchise, and the change of the central piece of
evidence from a photo to a piece of newsreel film a more
cinematic way of depicting the information, and,
consequently, a recognition of the needs of the medium that
an assembly-line "B" screenwriter probably wouldn't have had
time for. I've never seen TIME TO KILL, the earlier version,
which WAS and entry in a "B" movie series (Mike Shayne), but
I'd be surprised if that imaginative change was incorporated
in the earlier version, because, as one fairly famous former
"B" movie actor once put it (after he'd left the film
business and gone into politics), when it came to "B" movies,
"They didn't want them good. They wanted them Thursday." And
if George Montgomery seemed to young and boyish for the role,
one is struck by how good a Marlowe he might have made had
they waited five or ten years, sort of a reverse of how
Mitchum's performance in the remake of MMS, 1975'S FAREWELL,
MY LOVELY, makes you wish he'd played the part in his
prime.
No, I say thank God we got the chance to see all these
competing interpretations.
JIM DOHERTY
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