Much as I like Robert Altman's 1973 riff on Chandler's The Long Goodbye, I find it strange this James Garner/Paul Bogart take on The Little Sister, made four years earlier, is often overlooked, and that many critics consider Garner miscast as hardboiled Philip Marlowe. There are so many similarities between the two films, it seems impossible to think Altman was not influenced by this earlier effort.As with Chandler's novels, the thread of familial relationships runs strongly in the background of both movies. Marlowe helmer Paul Bogart's daughter Jennifer was married to The Long Goodbye's star Elliot Gould during this period. As if that isn't co-incidence enough, the father and daughter share the same surname as Humphrey Bogart, who is held by many (though not me) to be the ideal Marlowe in the 1946 The Big Sleep.There are further co-incidences of an almost familial nature. Gayle Hunnicut, female star of Marlowe, reappears as a femme fatale in the Powers Boothe Marlowe series of the 1980s, while the apartment Gould uses in The Long Goodbye also makes a guest appearance in the Boothe episodes. Also The Long Goodbye's script writer Leigh Brackett co-wrote the screenplay to the Bogie The Big Sleep almost three decades earlier. The coincidences just keep mounting up...But let's just look at the similarities now between Marlowe and The Long Goodbye.* Both tales are updated from their 1940s settings, but in both Marlowe is obviously a man out of his time. His ethics, dress and moral code are at odds with everyone else around him. In both films, Marlowe could easily be a figure from the '40s instead of the updated setting he finds himself in.* The hippy, drug culture of the 1960s and 1970s is visible it the background of both films. This counterculture only goes to underscore how Marlowe is entirely out of step with the times he finds himself in.* In both films, Marlowe is closer to Chandler's errant knight, going down mean streets while himself being mean, than the two-fisted Humphrey Bogart of Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep.* Both films have enigmatic endings, and leave Marlowe walking away from crime scenes in a way he did not in the novels; it is almost as if the 1940s morals make Marlowe so sick to the stomach he can't be bother with clearing the modern messes he finds himself in any more. * Both films have music scores that consist of different versions of the same tune being played over and over, though sadly the score to the 1969 film never seems to have been released.OK, so some of things elements are implicit in the books. Marlowe's morality was as probably as outdated in 1940s Hollywood as it was in the same town 30 years later, and the ending of Chandler's novel The High Window is at least as enigmatic as the endings of these two films, in the fact that the true guilty parties are never punished. Also, both films are in keeping with their era. A trait they share with another underrated Marlowe film, the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep with Robert Mitchum (which for my money is better than the Bogart/Hawks version any day for being much closer to the book, despite being directed by perennial journeyman Michael Winner) is that of being updated to the-then present day. However, Winner goes a step further than Bogart or Altman by moving the action to Britain -- a glossy, glamorous London, unrecognisable as such to those who lived there at the time, to be sure, and as much a fantasy as Bay City in Chandler country -- but this change in locale underscores the universality of the world Chandler had created.The crimes in all these stories would not be out of place today and had their equivalent in the times of that other great Marlowe, Christopher, and his contemporary, Shakespeare. The small, mucky, grubby crimes of the Quests, the Wades/Lennoxes and the Sternwoods, as well as the perpetually corrupt police and double-dealing officials, small-time reporters and shiftless grifters, are as true of the real underworld today as they were when Chandler wrote his stories, or even a thousand years before that.In Marlowe, it is human nature that is on display, and the themes of the story -- family breakdown, blackmail, murder and someone with the courage to stand up against such human excrescence -- would work as well in the internet age as the did in 1969. Perhaps even better.It's true this film has faded more than The Long Goodbye. Its obvious back projection and TV-style photography sometimes let it down and the fashions look more dated than in the other Marlowe films of the same era, despite being only a little older than them. (Indeed, it plays as trail-run for Garner's later TV success, The Rockford Files.) But for all that, it is as entertaining and as thought-provoking as Altman's film, and Garner's performance carries the whole thing effortlessly along. It is an unjustly ignored treasure rather than a guilty pleasure.

In order to appeal to audiences in the late 1960s, a number of new and familiar elements were mixed together to create this updated version of Raymond Chandler's 1949 novel "The Little Sister". Predictably, there's a complicated plot that involves a missing person, blackmail and a number of murders, there's a bunch of characters that are generally corrupt and untrustworthy and there's plenty of sharp, witty and clever dialogue. Instead of the usual grittiness however, there's glossiness and bright colours replace the black and white look of earlier Marlowe movies. The creative cinematography of the past is replaced by a style that's much more contemporary but also by comparison, rather bland.In time-honoured style, Chandler's legendary detective is just as broke as ever and is rendered unconscious on more than one occasion as well as being hired by a number of different clients (as he was in "Murder, My Sweet"). This time around though, he's noticeably less cynical and hardboiled and much more affable and easy-going.Orfarmay Quest (Sharon Farrell) is the rather staid-looking young blonde from Kansas who hires Philip Marlowe (James Garner) to find her missing brother, Orinn. Marlowe's investigation leads him to a rundown hotel where the manager (who's more interested in sleeping than doing any work) gives him a key for Orinn's room. To his surprise, Marlowe discovers that Orinn is no longer there and the room is now occupied by a guy called Grant Hicks (Jackie Coogan). A second surprise awaits Marlowe, however, because as he leaves the hotel, he discovers that the manager's been stabbed to death with an ice-pick.Shortly after, Hicks calls Marlowe and wants to hire him. When Marlowe turns up at Hicks' new hotel, he gets knocked over the head by a mystery woman who promptly disappears leaving him in the room with Hicks who's been killed by someone who stabbed him with a similar ice-pick to the one which was used on the previous victim. Inside Hicks' toupee, Marlowe finds a ticket for some photos which he then collects from the shop where they'd been developed and discovers that they're compromising shots of a popular TV star called Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicutt) and a notorious gangster called Sonny Steelgrave (H.M. Wynant). Orinn and Hicks had clearly been involved in a scheme to blackmail Mavis Wald.Through his further investigations, Marlowe meets Mavis' best friend Dolores Gonzalez (Rita Moreno) and her ex-husband Dr Lagardie (Paul Stevens) and gradually becomes aware of the intricacies of the relationships between them and the various other characters in the case and this soon proves to be the key to solving the mystery surrounding who was responsible for the various murders."Marlowe" has a very light-hearted atmosphere and the comedy potential of many incidents is exploited to the full. A great example of this is the scene in which Bruce Lee as one of Steelgrave's henchmen, tries to bribe Marlowe and then trashes his office in spectacular style. The quality of the acting is very good throughout and James Garner brings a great deal of charm to his portrayal of Chandler's famous private investigator.

"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".

James Garner is a likable guy and professional actor. On screen he's quiet, capable, but subject to surprise. That's kind of a problem here because Raymond Chandler's stories depend so heavily on the character of Philip Marlowe -- and Marlowe has to be interesting rather than merely likable. Dick Powell was a zesty hard-boiled Marlowe in "Murder My Sweet." Humphrey Bogart was a cynical and tough Marlowe in "The Big Sleep." Robert Mitchum brought an air of ontological Angst to Marlowe in "Farewell My Lovely." Garner's Marlowe is no more colorful than Jim Rockford or Perry Mason or Jessica Fletcher. Garner's Marlowe doesn't clear the bar set by "Columbo."The story begins interestingly enough with a couple of ice pick murders but soon turns anfractuous. Great names though: Mavis Wald, Orfamay Quest, Sonny Steelgrave, Oliver Hady. I haven't read the Chandler story but if those names didn't emerge from the print version they should have.The plot itself is of little consequence. As usual the unraveling of the mystery brings Marlowe into contact with an assortment of slightly odd characters. We've seen most of them before -- the irritated police, the dame with money, class, and the fortificate tongue. Gayle Hunnicut, with that nose that belongs on a carved cameo profile, looks as if she could easily have all that and many other virtues as well. At one point, Bruce Lee shows up and demolishes Marlowe's office with his feet and elbows, just to demonstrate his martial arts prowess. Later, he goes a step too far. I admit to a certain confusion somewhere in the middle of this thing. I happen to be on a voyage of self discovery and the one certain thing I've discovered is that, as you age, you can't eat anything without nodding out afterward. Inevitably, the grape is followed by the coma. But it didn't prevent me from an appreciation of Gayle Hunnicut's nose -- or Rita Moreno all over. Kenneth Tobey is fine as a cop. He's the Air Force captain in "The Thing From Another World." Over the next 15 or 20 years he began to look, not just older, but wrecked, and he's great. Catch him as the seedy union leader smoking pinched cigarettes in "The Candidate."The failure of this movie isn't all Garner's fault. Okay, so his range is limited and he lacks flamboyance. But so do almost all the other elements of the movie. The Los Angeles we see looks like the Los Angeles of any made-for-TV movie. The locations are dull and the lighting is flat. "Dragnet" had more local color and I won't even mention "L. A. Confidential," which had a genuine sense of place. The set dressing is unimaginative. Take Marlowe's office. THIS isn't Marlowe's office, dark, with a neon sign blinking on and off somewhere outside. It looks like a set hastily constructed on a sound stage. An exception is the interior of the Bradbury Building, which is familiar and looks much as it did in "Wolf", "Double Indemnity", and several other flicks. The Bradbury Building IS Los Angeles. I almost sobbed when I saw it.Maybe one of the killer mistakes made by the people behind this effort, especially the writer, Sterling Silliphant, was deciding to leave out any narration by Marlowe, because that's where Raymond Chandler's unforgettable charm lay. "Her hair was the color of gold in old painting." Here, her hair is just blond and puffy.