Arguably the most famous and influential private eye in detective fiction, Philip Marlowe was the brainchild of crime novelist/screenwriter Raymond Chandler (1888-1959). According to Marlowe scholar Bill Henkin, the fictional character was "born in Santa Rosa, California, in that time out of time that allowed him to be 33 in 1933, 42 in 1953, and 43 1/2 in 1958. In many ways he was the very model of a perfect private investigator: a college graduate, 6 feet, 1/2 inch tall and 199 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair going gray."

Marlowe likes whiskey and females, plays chess, prefers to work alone and is educated enough to quote T.S. Eliot and Robert Browning when the occasion demands. He has that romantic loner's code that once prompted him to tell his old friend Lt. Bernie Ohls, Chief of homicide for the Los Angeles sheriff's office, "I hear voices crying in the night and I go to see what's the matter. You don't make a dime that way." Originally created by Chandler in short stories, Marlowe continued his lonely, often gallant misadventures in novels (beginning with Chandler's 1939 The Big Sleep), movies, radio, television, comics and audiotapes. Long after Chandler's death, other authors tried their hands at writing Philip Marlowe short stories and novels.

The first actor to play Marlowe in the movies was Dick Powell, who successfully escaped his screen image of a lightweight song-and-dance man by taking on the private eye's tough, wisecracking persona in Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet (1944). Next up was Humphrey Bogart, who played Marlowe in Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946), with its famously convoluted plot that even Chandler himself admitted he didn't fully understand. In addition to the release print, TCM is showing the original 1945 pre-release version of The Big Sleep, which more clearly spells out some plot details but does not include certain scenes with co-star Lauren Bacall that were shot later and inserted into the film -- including some celebrated double-entendre dialogue between Bogart and Bacall about horse-racing.

Robert Montgomery stars as Marlowe in Lady in the Lake (1947) and also directed the film, which features the unusual use of a "subjective" camera showing everything from Marlowe's perspective. George Montgomery takes his turn with the character in The Brasher Doubloon (1947), adapted from Chandler's novel The High Window. Marlowe (1969), with James Garner in the title role, was an adaptation of Chandler's novel The Little Sister and Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) with Elliott Gould as an easily duped Marlowe was more of a cynical commentary on contemporary Los Angeles than a standard detective thriller. And let's not forget that Robert Mitchum was well-received in two performances as Marlowe - Dick Richards' Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and a remake of The Big Sleep (1978). The latter film, although updated and set in London, is considered more faithful to the original Chandler novel than the Bogart original.

The films in TCM's salute to Philip Marlowe are The Big Sleep (1946 release version), The Big Sleep (1945 pre-release version), Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Lady in the Lake (1947).

by Roger Fristoe