These remarks are limited and scope and concern the episode 'Finger- Man.' Powers Boothe is a quite likable actor, and the show is enjoyable, especially considering that in the waning years of the Reagan days American audiences were regaled with such gems as A-Team and Airwolf, so I wish to cast these criticisms with a bit of perspective. That being said, it's hard for me to watch this show because it gets a LOT of period details wrong. Hammett was writing his stories about the 1920s or even earlier, but Chandler set his in the 1930s and 1940s, but this series seems to confound the fashions of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Cars, furniture, clothing, hairstyles of these three periods are juxtaposed in one episode. One example among many: the fat rich ringleader in the episode is using a brass candlestick telephone; a guy with that much money, living ostentatiously in the mid to late nineteen- thirties would NEVER have used such a phone--they were totally passe by that time, it would be akin to using a 2 pound Motorola brickphone today instead of a couple of ounce millimeter thin smartphone. But clearly this kind of set-design is geared to average audiences who are clueless and will just swallow it and think 'gee! what a weird telephone!' Men's hair (too long in back) and ladies' styles also off, as are the mens' hats--and also how the hats are worn; you can just tell these modern actors probably NEVER wear hats, so when they wear them, they are telegraphing (at least to me); HELLO, I am an ACTOR WEARING a HAT see, THIS is the 1930s, I HAVE A HAT.' The interior of Marlowe's flat is also anachronistic; looks as if he has wall to wall carpet, which I've hardly ever seen during that period. Just a myriad of little details wrong, which, collectively, are a thorn in the eye. The gunfight was also almost laughably bad, both in how it was played and what happened. For example, a fellow doesn't get shot in the shoulder by a Colt .45 and not get knocked down, or react in some way. It's unfortunate that this series seems like it had almost all the makings of something pretty darn good--but ended up distinctly so-so; was it meant to be tongue-in-cheek, cartoonish? A dream-like evocation of the past, a little bit like the Singing Detective perhaps? Or did they have too little time, too little money, (or too much coke, after all, it was the eighties) and they figured, 'hey, this is America, HBO, and why take the trouble to cast pearls before swine?' Now, I did personally enjoy seeing the street scenes filmed on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, in the early 1980s, and if one looks carefully, one can see Carodin's dilapidated clothing store and the Deli on the corner of Fair Oaks, a now long-defunct era of Old Town Pasadena before it was plasticized, which, like Raymond Chandler's LA, is now gone forever.

I remember watching the first season of this when it came out and absolutely adored it. Powers Boothe's portrayal was just right. It was around the same time that Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes first aired, so we were spoilt for quality detective drama. If I recall correctly, it was part financed by London Weekend Television (part of the ITV network at the time) and shown on ITV in prime time. I recall them announcing that, even though the show was popular, they would not be making any more after the initial five due to it being so expensive. Nearly every item in the show was a genuine period piece, with very little being reproduced. This, and the fact that it was shot in the UK, made it extremely costly. The second series was never shown properly in the UK. Odd episodes would turn up in the early hours of the morning and, although the production values were not as good, the shows were still enjoyable. Hopefully someone will produce a restored version of the shows on DVD (previous comments claim that the quality is not too good). I also think it's time for Marlowe to appear again. James Caan's version in "Poodle Springs" didn't quite work as I thought he was a little too old for the role. Ideally, Marlowe should be in his late thirties/early forties: young enough to take (or throw) a punch, but old enough to have "been around the block" a few times. Ten years ago, Harrison Ford would have been ideal, but now I'm not sure. Any ideas .... ?

Powers Boothe is the quintessential Philip Marlowe; no one can ever best his performance in this series. He is cool, hip, a great wisecracker, and obsessed about the truth while seeming not to care. The next-best aspect of the series was the complete re-creation of the 1930's; sets were perfect, cars were big and bulky, clothes were gorgeous, and art deco abounded. Marlowe's bathroom even had those pastel nile green tiles that were everywhere in the 30's and 40's.The 1986 series listed here was not the first, though, and not the best. HBO did 5 episodes in 1983 that have never been run since and were all mostly filmed, I believe, in England; these featured the luminous Kathryn Leigh Scott as Annie Rearden. She doesn't show up much in the second set, and that in itself makes the newer series a pale copy of the original. These original episodes are the ones that should have been released first as they are far superior, and I look forward to them being issued. "The King in Yellow" was a masterpiece about a murdered big-band trumpeteer whom everyone hated so suspects were plentiful; "Smart Aleck Kill" mimicked Wallace Reid's drug-induced death in grand Hollywood style; "The Pencil" found Marlowe vying with a mafia boss to get a stool pigeon out of town alive; "Nevada Gas" featured a corrupt attorney who is targeted by his wife's boyfriend (played with nasty panache by "Hawk the Slayer's" John Terry); "Finger Man" has a femme fatale who takes up with a friend of Marlowe's, who then tries to frame Marlowe for a robbery. This is a quality production, but can't truly be called a series. Only these 11 episodes were filmed, to my knowledge. I taped them all on their original run, and they weren't treated as an ongoing thing, which was a distinct oversight on HBO's part. Powers Boothe is magnetic as well as truly wonderful in this role, and they could have had a real winner on their hands if they had continued with the team used on the original 5 episodes, and without such a long break between the two sets.

He has the Raymond Chandler down perfectly and brings him to life in a more interesting and exciting way. I hope he does a few more. A more real life type of hero for all times. A real thinker and a tuff guy to boot.