Actualités

(Dick Richards, 1975, Park Circus, 15)

Raymond Chandler's second Philip Marlowe novel has been filmed three times: first in disguise as the 1942 B-movie The Falcon Takes Over, next as the excellent noir thriller Murder My Sweet (1944) starring Dick Powell, and third as this elegant neo-noir with a perfectly cast Robert Mitchum, at 58 the oldest actor to play Marlowe. It appeared during a period of nostalgia for the interwar years (along with The Great Gatsby, The Sting, The Way We Were, Chinatown) and is set in 1941 during the months leading up to Pearl Harbor. To a bluesy score by David Shire, Marlowe goes down the mean streets of a Los Angeles lit by John A Alonzo to resemble paintings by Edward Hopper. He's searching for Velma, the missing moll of gangster Moose Malloy, and following Joe Dimaggio's hitting streak for the Yankees. He's a weary figure, aware that his chivalric values...

This is the third adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely but the first under its real name. The other two incarnations are the 1942’s The Falcon Takes Over and 1944’s Murder, My Sweet but this is the more faithful one of the movement to the big screen.

In true, neo-noir fashion, it begins with the protagonist caught in a problem of him being blamed for two murders. It starts with the voiceover summing up in a roundabout way until he picks up the phone to the police. “Come alone” is the last thing said to the policeman so he can explain it all; it’s when he meets the policeman that he begins to tell us his story.

It’s 1941 and we’re in Los Angeles, we have Robert Mitchum playing Philip Marlowe, a detective who has been hired by ex-convict Moose Malloy (Jack O’Hallorhan) to find the love of his life,...

The Warner Archive Collection is a manufacture-on-demand (Mod) DVD series that specializes in putting previously unreleased films on DVD for the first time. Recently they dug deep into their vast history of classic horror and selected some winners to resurrect.

The Warner Archive Collection can make a wide array of films available because they don't actually create the DVD until it is ordered by a customer. This way, they are not taking a chance of getting stuck with a large amount of inventory if a selected title doesn't sell. You'll certainly recognize some of the horror films the Warner Archive Collection has added to its library, but there are a couple of really obscure ones in there as well. Take a look at the list of what's been made available and plan your shopping list now.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

Although the recent remake featuring the suddenly single...

There are private detectives, and then there is Philip Marlowe. The iconic investigator created by Raymond Chandler has existed in the form of the written word since 1939, and on the big screen since 1942’s The Falcon Takes Over.

Embodied on the silver screen by such icons as Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum (both of whom starred in respective adaptations of The Big Sleep, Chandler’s most famous, and first true, Marlow piece), The Warner Archive has given the world the chance to see one of the lesser talked about Marlowe films. The company has released the 1969 film, Marlowe, starring James Garner.

Directed by Paul Bogart, Marlowe follows the titular literary legend, as he worms his way through cases ranging from missing people and the occasional murder-by-ice-pick. Based on Chandler’s “The Little Sister,” the film is an odd bit of noir filmmaking that is not quite as engaging as Bogart...