Raymond Chandler was in vogue during the late 1940s and into the 1950s. That is in large part due to the popularity of his fictional private investigator Philip Marlowe, made even more popular by Humphrey Bogart in 1946’s The Big Sleep. But since The Brasher Doubloon was owned by 20th Century Fox and not Warner Bros. like The Big Sleep, Bogart was not eligible to play Marlowe in the latter film, necessitating a re-casting. Stepping into those shoes was George Montgomery, a contract player looking to wrap up his contract with Fox and move on. An adaptation of Chandler’s The High Window, retitled The Brasher Doubloon, seemed like a good one to go out on. At the very least it would allow Montgomery a chance to show off his quick-talk and wit while also being smug, confident, and smart. This was an ideal role and Montgomery does a lot with it.
The mystery Marlowe is challenged with this time around involves a missing coin, a Brasher Doubloon, that has disappeared from the safe of a wealthy widow, Elizabeth Murdock (Florence Bates). When Marlowe arrives at the mansion at her behest, he believes this will be a rather mundane case. He is soon dissuaded of this notion by her angry son, Leslie (Conrad Janis) as well as the skittish Merle Davis (Nancy Guild). Soon Marlowe is finding himself being threatened by mysterious men with guns who want the coin, too, as well as a handful of dead bodies that he keeps stumbling upon. The more he looks into this case, the more he is certain Merle may have something to do with the missing coin and maybe something else far more disturbing.
Raymond Chandler writes mysteries with a lot of moving parts. The problem is that it doesn’t always translate well to the screen. We saw that in The Big Sleep when the film got weighed down with all the plot and characters. In this film, there has been so much truncating and trimming that it becomes a shell of the original mystery. The opening sequence is the only one where it feels like the movie is taking its time getting things going. After that the film is as rapid-fire as Marlowe’s dialogue. It rarely takes any time to breathe and just blazes through from plot point to plot point. It’s also heavily simplified, leaving out large moments to the point that it feels too hollowed out, lacking substance. It’s like 20th Century Fox looked at what Warner Bros. did with The Big Sleep and overcorrected.
On top of that, though George Montgomery is a fine Marlowe, he’s no Bogart. Bogart gave Marlowe an edge that Montgomery just doesn’t quite have. Montgomery is playing Marlowe with too much confidence and swagger to the point that we never feel he is in any real danger. With Bogart there was always the sense that he was flying by the seat of his pants, one step ahead of the villains but just barely. Marlowe is confident, but not overconfident. That is missing in this interpretation. There is something missing when you feel the protagonist is indestructible, or at least he thinks he is.
As a mystery, this one is fine. By watering down the plot for this interpretation it loses a lot of what makes Raymond Chandler books so readable. This seems to be a problem found in virtually all of the Philip Marlowe films, even the revival movie Marlowe from a few years ago. He’s a fascinating character that struggles in the translation to the big screen. It’s too much of a course correction trimming the book as much as they did here, but it also makes it a more accessible movie to the novice who isn’t looking for a film to be too challenging. But is that really a win, though? 1947 - 72 minutes
Comments
Post a Comment