Chandler

I saw this film when it was first released. The memory of how bad it was has stayed with me almost forty years. I didn't want to trust my own sentiments about the movie when I saw it, so I consulted a movie review published in a major metropolitan newspaper the next day- sentiment confirmed, the reviewer wrote that the movie was incoherent, indecipherable, and uninspiring. A little research reveals that the producer was star Leslie Caron's husband, thus the whiff of nepotism suggests the beginning for this awful film. The film's roster of many capable actors - Caron, Warren Oates, Scatman Crothers, Gloria Grahame, and James Sikking among others - suggests that it holds some promise. But the death of this film is attributable to its terrible screenplay. The "mystery" implicated is so obscure and so little revealed throughout the film that the viewer is left perplexed from scene to scene. The movie seems torn between being a detective mystery and an espionage thriller, but never settles upon one or the other. The sense of suspense is entirely absent. The main characters settle on playing dry, emotionless types in a fashion that inspires no empathy whatsoever. The cinematography is pedestrian. The result is that the hapless viewer loses interest in the characters, the plot, and, in the end, the film itself. I am little surprised that there is no version of this pathetic film available to purchase. I hope that if TCM finds a print of this film and feels compelled to air it that it is safely relegated to the 4:00 am slot.

TCM did recently show this movie on a typically lazy summer afternoon before the 4th, and from the start, I was looking for some type of story line in which to sink my interest in, but things turned out murky. Its big draw was that it starred the much under-appreciated Warren Oates as some kind of detective who starts asking the big redeeming questions after he can't bring himself to carry out the job of tailing a mysterious woman for a corporate interest. When that plot line eventually became evident, I had the misfortune of falling asleep for just a few moments, and upon awakening, became even less involved as Oates wandered from scene to scene with the intent of discovering why the woman (the capable Leslie Caron) was on everyone's mind. My fault, sure, for nodding off, but unless the viewer is into speculation, this idea is never really revealed which leads to one guessing why her character is so central to the film's plot. Also disconcerting is how effortlessly the scenes wander between Carmel, Calif. and Los Angeles. The film's geography apparently has the two locales next door to one another, but they're not. The action moves too conveniently between them. And when Oakes and Caron end up with an inoperable vehicle yards from the Pacific Ocean under Big Sur's famed Bixby Creek Bridge after appearing to only have pulled off a main highway and onto a dirt road the night before, it appeared as if the producers wanted to get some grand photogenic shot near the end of this floundering mess. For whatever reason, too little too late. Nitpicking, yes, but I'm trying to find something worthy to write about what could have been a very good flick with just a little more pertinent exposition, and if I could, I would have had another joyous detective movie from the glorious '70s to chew on and enjoy.

Raymond Chandler (Warren Oates) quits his security job. Corrupt government official Ross J. Carmady is looking to take control of gangleader John Melchior. Bernie Oakman offers old acquaintance Chandler as a patsy and hires him to protect government witness Katherine Creighton from Melchior without telling her. He befriends her and rescues her from kidnappers.

The name seems to be there to confuse fans of Raymond Chandler who created hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe. Chandler is world-wearied but sadly he's lifeless. The movie has nothing. The directions are stiff and without style. It's a sad tired effort. Everybody seems to be moving at half speed. Its production problems are the least of the deficiencies. Carmady's plans are not explained well. The shooting style is horribly stiff. Warren Oates looks uncomfortably small. The story is slower than molasses. Even the car chase is badly done. This is amateur hour.

There is nothing to recommend this turkey. I like Warren Oates but even he can't enliven the terrible dialogue, rotten script, stupid editing, and the horrid, horrid soundtrack. Plot? Oh, something about somebody wanting to kidnap Leslie Caron, or kill her, or something. But it's all a ruse to set up another guy who works for the organized crime syndicate that's run by the government. Something like that. Stay away. Especially if you like Warren Oates; you don't want to remember him this way. One thing that's of interest: listening for Gordon Pinsent's Newfoundland accent. But you don't want to remember Pinsent this way, either.

This private eye film is purely in the seventies mood, maybe more than KLUTE or THE LONG GOODBYE, produced the very same year. This one is really gloomy, slow paced, a pure product of this period. And Warren Oates contributes more than anything else in this atmosphere, because he was also the most iconic actor of this period, between late sixties and 1975, thanks mostly to Sam Peckinpah. He plays a terrific loser here, as he was in BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA. The intrigue is worthless in terms of understanding, as any gumshoe plots, only spirit, atmosphere counts. A definitely underrated movie, the only one from this director.