Showing posts with label los angeles mean streets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label los angeles mean streets. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

*Not All Phillip Marlowes Are Created Equal- Raymond Chandler's "Playback"

Click on Title To Link To Raymond Chandler Web page.

Book Review

Playback, Raymond Chandler, Vintage Press, New York, 1988


I have mentioned, in passing, in previous reviews (see archives) that not all of the classic detective novelist Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowes are born equal. The definitive screen role, probably the way Chandler’s Marlowe is most widely known, of course, is that of Humphrey Bogart in the "Big Sleep". Others like Dick Powell and, later in the 1970’s, Elliott Gould kept Bogie in pretty good company with their interpretations of Marlowe as the world-weary private detective who sees things through to the end, especially when he screws up an assignment. It's professional ethics, you know. But mainly Marlowe is intrepid and that carries him a long way. That characteristic helped define the noir detective. From that perspective, Robert Mitchum and James Garner were less successful in their respective interpretations on that very point.

That said, apparently, not all classic Raymond Chandler novels are born equal either. This late, perhaps, final Phillip Marlowe adventure (published in 1958) seems to have run out of steam both as to the Marlowe character and to plot. One would have thought Phillip Marlowe, forever literarily associated with Los Angeles and its means streets, would be right at home in his search, at the request of a local lawyer, for the inevitable `missing woman' ("dame", "frill", "frail" for the non-politically correct types) who is “on the lam”. There is plenty of sparse but functional dialogue, physical action and a couple of plot twists, particularly around the identity of the above-mentioned "dame" and the motives for her movements.

As always, have no fear, the intrepid Marlowe will figure it out in the end and some kind of 'rough' justice will prevail. At this point in the Phillip Marlowe series, however, our shamus has been around the block more than a few times but he still is punching away at the 'bad guys' and the absurdity of the modern world. But here, in the 1950’s Southern California milieu that is very quickly losing any of its pioneer spirit and has gone ‘soft’, Marlowe seems out of place. His world has lost its bearings and the strength has been sapped out of such virtues as personal honor, individual effort and chasing after windmills. Hell, old Marlowe goes to bed with the lady client (a no-no in the old days), is considerate and respectful of the police (a definite no-no for any self-respecting private eye) and, at the end, is wistfully thinking about an old love that has reentered the picture. Phillip, where did you go wrong?

How does this one compare with the other Marlowe volumes? Give me those background oil derricks churning out the wealth while looking for General Sternwood's Rusty Regan in "The Big Sleep" or the run down stucco flats in some shady places in pursuit of Moose's Velma in "Farewell, My Lovely" any day. Nevertheless, as always with Chandler, you get high literature (including, as always, some choice metaphors) in a plebeian package. Phillip Marlowe, RIP.

Friday, August 26, 2011

“First Let’s Kill All The Lawyers”-Not- “The Lincoln Lawyer”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film The Lincoln Lawyer.

DVD Review

The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tormei, based on the novel by Michael Connelly, Liongate, 2011


Yes, I know, everybody, everybody including Richard III, I think, who uttered some variation of that idea in William Shakespeare’s play of the same name, hates lawyers. Hates them until old justice time comes along and everyone, including this writer, hopes to high heaven that their lawyer is up to the task of representing them zealously, and in some desperate cases more than zealously. And that combination of sentiments, that hate/love thing, is what drives this film which according to my usually reliable sources follows the Michael Connelly novel pretty closely.

Needless to say, except for the thugs, pimps, dope dealers, hellish motorcycle angels, bail bondmen, public servant grifters and grafters and a bewitching lawyer ex-wife (played by Marissa Tormei) nobody, no viewer anyway, is suppose to like the Lincoln lawyer at the outset. (Named the Lincoln lawyer, by the way, not for his ethical resemblance to Father Abraham but because he rides around in a chauffeur-driven Lincoln.) His wheeling and dealing just this side of the law is what makes him the darling of that rogue’s gallery of characters listed above (except, of course, the fetching ex-wife, and maybe her a little too) and the bane of the District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Police Department establishment.

That deft and ruthless maneuvering is what also draws him to the attention of a vicious killer of women, women of the night to use a quaint phrase, and a surefire way to commit the “perfect murder” and like so many before him said murderer thought he was scot-free as is the usual case once the Lincoln lawyer was on the case. But see, said Lincoln lawyer “got religion” along the way after he and those around him were slated to take the fall if that vicious killer (a mommy’s boy to boot) got tripped up.

So you know damn well pretty early on that our trusty Lincoln lawyer is not taking the fall and, moreover, is going to see that an actual piece of real justice occurs in the process by the freeing a framed man who was sitting in stir through his negligence (and disbelief in innocence) by seeing that that vicious killer gets his jolt up at Q. Therefore you see we had it all wrong. There is some rough justice in the world. And one had better not kill off all those lawyers if there is going to be even that amount. The twists and turns getting there, although fairly well-worn by now in movie-dom, are what make this film one to see.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-Come On Now, Get With The Program- Crime, I Repeat, Crime Does Not Pay- Richard Basehart’s “Tension-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a site that reviews and details the plot lines of crime noir films

DVD Review

Tension, starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Paramount Pictures, 1950


No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) The film under review, 1950’s Tension, falls somewhere in the grey area, the plot line while it started out with a certain amount of promise got dragged in the end toward a standard police procedural, a kiss of death for most crime noir films in my book. And the femme fatale is neither fetching (a la Rita) nor wicked (except for an involvement in murder and mayhem, but they all, the femme fatales that is, are involved in that, one way or the other, it comes with the territory).

A quick review of the plot will explain my bewilderment at where to place this one in the crime noir pantheon. Warren (Richard Basehart), a Walter Middy-type, married to Claire (Audrey Totter), a second-rate gold-digger who attached herself to Warren in harder times (her harder times) out in Southern California when that locale was becoming the homeland of the dreams- the post-World War II suburban sun-drenched tract dreams. And Warren is a prime number one prospect for that dream working nights like a mad man to get Claire those things he promised her, or half of them anyway. But Claire, the little round-heels, is looking for speedier stuff now that she is settled into a good thing, and a plaint husband. And sweetheart Claire is flouting her stuff right in front of Warren with a guy of unknown resources (Barney) with some dough, a nice car, and a place on the beach in up-scale Malibu to sun herself. Well, a girl has to look out for herself, a round-heels girl anyway, right?

The plot thickens when Warren, no longer content to be a door-mat, decides to kill somebody over this transgression (Barney, heaven’s no, not lovely, wicked, maybe just misunderstood Claire). The long and short of it is that after planning the perfect murder by changing his identity (new idea, right?) he gets cold feet, as Walter Middys do, or maybe a slug of rationality that maybe, just maybe, sweet Claire ain’t worth it and good riddance. Especially after, as part of his change of identity, he meets a honey, Mary (played by the leggy Cyd Charisse), who is more his speed and, well, is happy to think about that suburban house and that white picket fence with 2.2 kids, and a dog, one dog.

But see the story would become really tedious if somebody didn’t kill somebody, and so old Barney winds up dead. And of course Warren (or his changed identity self, Paul) is fit six ways to Sunday for the frame. Someone is going to the chair for this one, this murder one job, and Warren better start making a list of his last requests.

Except of course, crime noir or not, guys who don’t commit murder and mayhem are not stepping off for such crimes, at least in 1950s movies. And that is where the tedious police procedural aspect of this film meets low-rent femme fatale when L.A.’s finest get on the case and “entrap” if you can believe that about the police in 1950, or now, everybody connected with the crime (except of course, the deceased Barney, although he too might have had a motive, who knows). And guess who is going to take the fall for this one? Well, guess. But you could see where this one was headed from a long way off. Hey didn’t Phillip Marlowe work these slumming L.A. streets in those days. Taking a little off-hand beating before swinging the scales of justice back where they belong. He could have been used here to tell Claire what’s what, and to spice this one up.