Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Danny Blankenship Suspense and private eye flicks are okay and this 1969 flick "Marlowe" is clearly no "Chinatown" it's still a film of wonder and mystery. Starring James Garner("The Rockford Files")as private eye Philip Marlowe who's tough and the money doesn't come easy still this private eye is smooth investigating cases and in this film he's on one of a missing person. And soon no one is who they seem the case takes twists and turns that involve blackmail and murders with ice picks. And all of this is taking place in a growing 1960's L.A. it's a hard boiled case with changing characters(it was nice to see a Bruce Lee appearance!) and that makes it tougher for Marlowe to crack the case. Overall this little suspense piece is entertaining it's funny watching the plot unfold and seeing new twist in a mystery game.

Spikeopath Marlowe is directed by Paul Bogart and adapted to screenplay by Stirling Silliphant from the novel The Little Sister written by Raymond Chandler. It stars James Garner, Gayle Hunnicut, Carroll O'Connor and Rita Moreno. Music is by Peter Matz and cinematography by William H. Daniels.Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlow (Garner) is working on what he thinks is a simple missing persons case, how wrong he is!Q as in Quintessential - U as in Uninhibited - E as in Extrasensory - S as in Subliminal - T as in Toots!Another of the interpretations for the great Chandler creation of Philip Marlowe, unsurprisingly met with mixed notices - just as all the others have done. You do wonder what Chandler would have made of the role portrayals that came out post his death? I like to think he very much would have enjoyed Garner's take, because this Marlowe is a quip happy wise guy, unflappable and cool, he portrays so much with just a glance, and the girls love him.The story is juicy in its little complexities, spinning Marlowe into muddy waters the further he investigates things. His life is always under threat, be it by serial ice-pick s or Asian martial artists (Bruce Lee no less in a nutty couple of scenes) wishing to inflict death, or of arrest by an increasingly frustrated police force. Bogart and Daniels keep the whole thing stylish looking, with film noir camera tricks and colour photography infusing the period details. While the ing cast, notably the ladies, give Garner some splendid .It's a different Marlowe for sure, but a thoroughly engaging and entertaining one. 7/10

SnoopyStyle Philip Marlowe (James Garner) is hired by Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell) to find her brother Orrin who had come to L.A. years ago. On the way, he finds a man murdered with an ice pick. Then he finds another body with an ice pick after getting knock down by a mysterious woman. Police detective Christy French (Carroll OConor) investigates. Marlowe discovers the mysterious woman is popular actress Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicut) and one of the dead man was developing compromising photos of her and Steelgrave. The ice pick stabbings are the trade mark of gangster Sonny Steelgrave (H.W. Wynant) and his men beats up Marlowe. Winslow Wong (Bruce Lee) comes in to rearrange Marlowe's office and keeps trying to buy him off for Steelgrave.James Garner is a great actor. He does have the charm which he used to great effect in 'The Rockford Files' years later. That's what this movie feels like. It has the quality and the feel of a TV show. That's what director Paul Bogart is more known for. The one thing missing is a hard-boiled cinematic style. It may have been a mistake to place this in the modern swinging 60's. At least, this never takes advantage of the natural discrepancies. There are way too many little problems. There isn't the usual scene when Marlowe gets hired and introduced to the audience. Even Bruce Lee is wasted. He gets two scenes of jumping around but nothing is ever allowed to land on Marlowe. Sure he has a bit of fun trashing the office but he takes a ridiculous flying leap off of a building. It's a close call and this is a miss by a hair.

seymourblack-1 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.