The neo-noir crime detective thriller ‘Marlowe’ will be released in New Zealand cinemas on April 27, starring Liam Neeson in his 100th film! It’s another iteration of the classic detective character Philip Marlowe, created by iconic crime writer Raymond Chandler and made famous on screen by Humphrey Bogart. The movie is based on the book ‘The Black Eyed Blonde’ by Benjamin Black, one of the novels that has explored the character of Philip Marlowe and his world since Raymond Chandler’s death.
MARLOWE, a gripping noir crime thriller set in late 1930s Los Angeles, centres around street-wise, down on his luck detective, Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson), who is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger), the daughter of a well-known movie star (Jessica Lange). The disappearance unearths a web of lies, and soon Marlowe is involved in a dangerous, deadly investigation where everyone involved has something to hide.
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Explore Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in our collection:
The black-eyed blonde : a Philip Marlowe novel / Black, Benjamin
“It is the early 1950s. In Los Angeles, private detective Philip Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow. Then a new client arrives: young, beautiful, and expensively dressed, Clare Cavendish wants Marlowe to find her former lover, a man named Nico Peterson. Soon Marlowe will find himself not only under the spell of the black-eyed blonde, but tangling with one of Bay City’s richest families and developing a singular appreciation for how far they will go to protect their fortune.” (Catalogue) [Note: Also available here under the author’s real name]
Perchance to dream : Robert B. Parker’s sequel to Raymond Chandler’s The big sleep / Parker, Robert B.
Robert B. Parker was the designated heir apparent to Raymond Chandler and in 1988, on the occasion of the centenary of Chandler’s birth, he was asked by the estate of Raymond Chandler to complete Chandler’s unfinished Philip Marlowe novel Poodle Springs. It was successful enough that in 1991 Parker followed it with a new novel featuring Marlowe, Perchance to Dream, a sequel to Raymond Chandler’s most famous novel The Big Sleep.
Only to sleep : a Philip Marlowe novel / Osborne, Lawrence
“Lawrence Osborne brings one of literature’s most enduring detectives back to life – as Private Investigator Philip Marlowe returns for one last adventure. The year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe – now in his seventy-second year – is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has his name written all over it. For Marlowe, this is his last roll of the dice, his swan song. His mission is to investigate the death of Donald Zinn – supposedly drowned off his yacht, and leaving behind a much younger and now very rich wife. But is Zinn actually alive? Are the pair living off the spoils? Set between the border and badlands of Mexico and California, Lawrence Osborne’s resurrection of the iconic Marlowe is an unforgettable addition to the Raymond Chandler canon”– Provided by publisher.” (Catalogue)
Something more than night / Newman, Kim
“Hollywood, the late 1930s. Raymond Chandler writes detective stories for pulp magazines, and drinks more than he should. Boris Karloff plays monsters in the movies. Together, they investigate mysterious matters in a town run by human and inhuman monsters. Joh Devlin, an investigator for the DA’s office who scores high on insubordination, enlists the pair to work a case that threatens to expose Hollywood’s most horrific secrets. Together they will find out more than they should about the way this town works. And about each other. And, oh yes, monsters aren’t just for the movies.” (Catalogue)
The big sleep ; Farewell, my lovely ; The high window / Chandler, Raymond
“Raymond Chandler’s first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction. The Big Sleep, Chandler’s first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder. In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women. In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself deep in the tangled affairs of a dead coin collector. In all three novels, Chandler’s hard-edged prose, colourful characters, vivid vernacular, and, above all, his enigmatic loner of a hero, establish his enduring claim to the heights of his chosen genre.” (Catalogue)
The big sleep
The most successful Raymond Chandler film adaptation is, of course, this classic Howard Hawks 1946 film, starring Humphrey Bogart as private detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge, with a screenplay by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe is summoned to the mansion of General Sternwood, who wants to resolve “gambling debts” his daughter Carmen owes to bookseller Arthur Geiger. As Marlowe leaves, Sternwood’s older daughter Vivian stops him. She suspects her father’s true motive for hiring a detective is to find his protégé Sean Regan who disappeared a month earlier. What follows was a plot so convoluted that Hawks would famously send Chandler a telegram asking him whether the chauffeur Owen Taylor had killed himself or was murdered, to which Chandler would reply that he didn’t know himself…A hollywood classic where perfect scripting & perfect casting collided.
The long goodbye
Robert Altman’s take on Raymond Chandler’s novel was scripted by Leigh Brackett, one of the co-writers of the classic Bogart/Bacall version of Chandler’s The Big Sleep in 1946. Chandler’s convoluted plot is given a surreal cast that verges at times on parody, as Altman and Brackett recast Chandler’s famous detective Philip Marlowe as an affectless, glib, hip, L.A habitué who lives next door to hippies who practice nude yoga, and spends a lot of time talking through a cigarette to himself or his cat. When he helps his friend Terry Lenox cross the border to Mexico he learns he may have been involved in his wife’s murder, and when his friend kills himself Marlowe is arrested. The resulting publicity gets him hired by a beautiful friend of Lennox’s to find her alcoholic husband (Sterling Haden), a washed up writer, and both ‘cases’ begin to merge into one. Gould is brilliant as Marlowe; his glib ‘It’s O.K with me’ catchphrase seems to reflect the ultimate disinterest in everything, but the gestalt of Altman’s serious ‘Noir’ ending recasts the character, and the movie, in an entirely different light.
