Una donna nel lago

For a suspense writer whose observations of mid-20th-century Los Angeles proved so gimlet-eyed that he has been enshrined as the city's unofficial bard, Raymond Chandler had a bumpy fling with Hollywood. The first of his five major novels to be filmed during the classic period of film noir, Farewell, My Lovely was first turned into an installment in the Falcon series of programmers, then into Edward Dmytryk's 1944 Murder, My Sweet (a success, but too short; to do justice to Chandler's atmospherics and milieu demands longer time spans than the movies allot them).

From 1946, probably the most adroit blending of style and content taken from his works was Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep. But its popularity, then and now, owes as much to the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall – and to the frisky, irreverent tone Hawks brought to the movie – as to Chandler, whose outlook was one of dispassionate observation tinged with disgust.

The following year, The Brasher Doubloon, from the book The High Window, can be deemed a failure. That leaves the odd case of The Lady in the Lake, also from ‘47, which Robert Montgomery, starring as Philip Marlowe, ill-advisedly decided to direct himself. The movie labors under two huge handicaps: one of technique, the other of tone.

Cited often (and often by those who may not have actually seen the movie) for its subjective use of the-camera-as-character, The Lady in The Lake flounders on an idea that may have sounded good when initially floated but had to have looked bad once the first rushes came in.

Except for an explanatory prologue (the necessity for which should have raised red flags) or in scenes where he's caught in a window or mirror, Montgomery's Marlowe remains unseen. We, through the camera lens, are the detective. Conceivably, this gimmick might have worked at a later date, when swift, lithe Steadicams were part of Hollywood's technical arsenal. But in1947, the camera lumbers along as though it were being shoved through wet sand. As a result the pace slows to deadening, as though a senescent Marlowe were tracking down clues from the rail of an aluminum walker.

In consequence, time that might profitably been expended on filling in missing pieces of the puzzle gets wasted on Marlowe's getting from point A to point B. Vital and evocative parts of Chandler's novel take place in the summer resort areas of Puma Point and Little Fawn Lake; that snail of a camera, however, was not up to a hike in the great outdoors, so the movie preserves none of them.

And in tossing away chunks of the novels to accommodate budgets and shooting schedules, movie versions (like this one) mistake Chandler's strengths, which did not lay in plot. (The scriptwriters on The Big Sleep, including William Faulkner, couldn't figure out who killed one of the characters, so they asked Chandler, who didn't know either.)

His strengths were in weaving intricate webs of duplicity and deceit shot through with corruption and dread. That was heavy fare for Hollywood – even during the noir cycle. So stories tended to be simplified and atmosphere lightened: the freighted response gave way to the wisecrack, suggestive tension between two characters turned into a meet-cute, the brooding loner became a red-blooded American joe.

So, in The Lady in The Lake, the icy and questionable Adrienne Fromsett of the book (Audrey Totter) is now a sassy minx to Marlowe's snappy man-about-town, and so on. The plot deals with Marlowe's attempts to find a missing woman (an off-screen character whom the Christmas-card credits, in a droll fit of Francophone humor, call Ellay Mort).

Is a verdict possible? Some viewers find the movie's conceits and distortions amateurish and self-congratulating, while others overlook them to find a vintage mystery from postwar vaults. The Lady in The Lake remains a flawed experiment that over the years has developed its own distinctive – if not quite distinguished – period bouquet.

I saw this film on TMC on Christmas Eve 2000. I thought it was pretty interesting. The first first-person film I've ever seen. It really caught the first-person POV with which Chandler wrote the novel. I loved Marlowe, wise-cracking, one-liners ("Do you fall in love with all of your clients? Only the ones in skirts.") I thought the director handled the camera very well, with the mirrors to show the first-person perspective. I like it a lot. Great noir! Kept me riveted.

Striking camera work letting the viewer see through the eyes of hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe(Robert Montgomery). This is an intriguing Raymond Chandler tale that has the "private dick" solving a murder while seeking a missing socialite. Montgomery directs himself and is primarily only seen in a scene looking in a mirror. Novelty of the camera work is clever and makes YOU part of the movie. Its pretty cool finding the clues. Very apt cast featuring Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Leon Ames and Jane Meadows. Fun to watch.

If you want a great, serious Philip Marlowe mystery, go check out "The Big Sleep." If you're in a lighter mood, however, this one is well worth watching. The POV is cute and leads to some decent effects, but it's also tremendously goofy sometimes. The dialogue really sells it though. The lessons I learned from this movie were 1) Only men can handle guns. 2) Having four thumbs is bad. 3) Never, ever tell anyone the time. 4) If you try hard enough, you can drink whiskey through your eyes. I'm sure there are hundreds more gnomic sayings, easily applicable to daily life, scattered through it!

Seriously, though, it was a lot of fun to watch, mostly because of the problems with it, and I'd highly recommend it.

Robert Montgomery was a pretty savvy guy. As I recall, President Eisenhower tapped him to be the first presidential adviser on TV appearances at a time when the tube was still a new- fangled technology. No doubt, his being a well known Republican also helped.

Too bad this experiment in the subjective camera fails as clearly as it does. I'm sure it took guts for Montgomery to pitch the idea to the notoriously conservative MGM. But he did get the opportunity. My feeling is that he took on too much for this, his first feature as a director.

First, he's not only directing but starring as well. That might be okay if he weren't also refashioning his image from lounge-lizard playboy to tough-talking private eye. After all, Dick Powell had managed a similar transition the year before in the highly effective Murder, My Sweet (1944). The trouble here is that we seldom see Marlowe (Montgomery), thanks to the subjective camera. Instead we hear him all the time in a pinched unnatural voice more annoying than compelling. Nor, for that matter, does the tough-guy tone match Marlowe's or narrator Montgomery's dapper appearance. Despite some clever cracks from scripter Fisher, the transition just doesn't work.

Just as troublesome is the complex Chandler novel that Fisher adapts without simplifying. The resulting narrative is almost impossible to unravel, which compounds a slow-moving camera whose subjective pov has to avoid the kind of quick-moving pans that might disorient or upset the viewer. Together, they produce a labored result, both visually and narratively. A simpler story-line would have demanded less from sometimes over-burdened viewers.

This is not to say the experiment doesn't occasionally produce interesting effects, especially the hazy, claustrophobic climb out of the wrecked car. Then there's the blonde receptionist's come-hither look while exiting the room that almost had me leaving my chair to follow. Note, however, how the the subjective eye of the camera alters traditional assumptions about movie acting . When Marlowe grills Adrienne Fromsett (Totter), the camera doesn't cut back and forth in routine conversational style. Rather the camera stays on Totter the entire time Marlowe eyeballs her. Thus, Totter has to perform uninterrupted for an extended period in which any false note or exaggeration gets magnified; at the same time, flaws cannot be finessed in the editing process. Rather, the whole scene has to be re-shot. Though the players do well enough, I suspect the novel technique was not popular.

If the movie fails, it's at least an honorable failure. Then again, the talented Montgomery bounced back in his next dual effort Ride the Pink Horse (1948), a gripping noir expertly acted and directed. Apparently, appropriate lessons were learned from this disappointing initial effort.