Marlowe (1969)

L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe (James Garner) is hired by a girl (Sharon Farrell, far too shrill) from Kansas to find her brother (Roger Newman). What starts out as a simple missing person case evolves into a series of blackmail, karate killers, mobsters and icepick murders. Based on the novel THE LITTLE SISTER by Raymond Chandler and directed by Paul Bogart (EVENING PRIMROSE). The film eschews Chandler's gritty 1940s L.A. to a then contemporary "hip" L.A. during the hippie era. Unlike Robert Altman's marvelous re-imagination of Philip Marlowe in contemporary terms in his LONG GOODBYE from 1973, it doesn't work here. The tone of the film varies from flip and comic to hard boiled neo-noir and the film makers (including screenwriter Sterling Silliphant) can't seem to find a balance that plays. Garner is all wrong for Marlowe, Chandler's Marlowe anyway and adopts the casual persona that apparently worked well for his TV show THE ROCKFORD FILES (I've never seen it myself). This is one film that could use a remake to do justice to the Chandler novel. Standing out among the cast is Rita Moreno in a showy performance as a stripper and best friend to the blackmailed heroine (lovely Gayle Hunnicutt). There's a typically pop 1970s score by Peter Matz with a dreadful, dated title song. Also with Carroll O'Connor, Kenneth Tobey, Jackie Coogan, William Daniels, H.M. Wynant and Bruce Lee who would have to wait a few more years for his turn at stardom.