American novelist Raymond Chandler literally wrote the book when it came to elevating the private eye to high literature.
His most famous character was called Philip Marlowe.
Fans of film noir tend to identify Marlowe with Humphrey Bogart, though the classic Big Sleep was the only time Bogie played Chandler’s tough, honourable private detective.
Photo: supplied
But he set the scene for other great Marlowes like Robert Mitchum and Dick Powell.
What made Marlowe Marlowe was something specific. Chandler’s writing was unique - tough, gritty, violent and sarcastic, steeped in liquor and firmly set in 40s Los Angeles.
But you need all those elements – and without them a film called Marlowe is going to struggle.
The new Marlowe certainly looks like it could deliver to even the most dyed-in-the-wool Raymond Chandler fan.
World-weary Liam Neeson seems a good fit for Bogart’s shoes, with fellow Irishman, director Neil Jordan, stepping up to replace noir master Howard Hawks.
So, there’s private eye Philip Marlowe set to head off down Chandler’s famous “mean streets”. All he needs is a client, preferably a dame, and generally in this sort of film, a blonde.
A blonde like Clare Cavendish, played by Diane Kruger.
Clare Cavendish is what you’d expect – beautiful, brittle and not remotely trustworthy. In fact, it’s a given in a Marlowe film that everyone apart from Marlowe is lying through her or his teeth.
Clare asks our hero to find a missing boyfriend called Nico Peterson.
Marlowe visits the Cavendish home, where he meets Clare’s mother – former film star Dorothy Quincannon, played by former film star Jessica Lange.
She flirts with Marlowe and drops hints that all may not be what it seems with the missing Nico
Well of course that’s an important thing when you’re looking for a missing gigolo. Half the people Marlowe meets say he’s dead, the other half say he isn’t.
There’s a mystery here, and like all Chandler plots, the mystery will soon get so tangled up it may never untangle.
Chandler’s trick when that happened was to simply write a scene where a guy comes in with a gun. Or where Marlowe gets hit over the head and wakes up tied up.
All of which happens here, along with stock noir ingredients like shady club-owners, suspicious cops and plenty of women complicating matters.
And yet, while the Chandler elements seem to be in place, there’s something not quite kosher about this Marlowe. That’s because it’s not actually based on a real Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe book.
After Chandler died, a whole lot of lesser, “authorised works” by other writers came out, including one called The Black Eyed Blonde, written by Irish novelist John Banville, and here adapted by Boston writer William Monahan.
Now this shouldn’t matter. Banville’s a Booker Prize winner, while Monahan picked up an Oscar for The Departed. But there’s a reason Chandler’s called “inimitable”, and – much as I love many of Neil Jordan’s films – he’s not quite the man for the job either.
Marlowe certainly looks lovely – all sun-kissed mansions and immaculate suits. But it looks like Spain – where it was shot - rather than seedy 1939 LA.
And the actors don’t seem very LA either. That’s because they’re from everywhere but.
Diane Kruger is German, Liam’s Irish, as is Colm Meaney as the main cop, most of the others are English, if they’re not Spanish or French.
In fact, the one genuine American – Jessica Lange – is meant to be playing an Irish actress.
The story itself sort of hangs together as well as the real thing, but the treatment is sluggish and the dialogue, unforgivably, is lame and barely Chandler-lite.
But my biggest complaint is the character of Marlowe himself, which presumably was the sole reason this film got greenlit in the first place.
That all these talented writers could turn Chandler’s famous “complete, common man” into just another Neeson elderly thug proves that duplicating a favourite writer is harder than it looks.
The fact is the bar for a decent, modern film-noir has been set so high by its predecessors. Disappointment is virtually built into most attempts.
And sadly, the only good things about this Marlowe were its good intentions.
