Did Chandler ever conjure his story like this?
The not seeing the detective thing is a gimmick. I know cause Ben Mankiwietz(ever how it’s spelled) said so. It’s kinda silly. Who thought that up?
Robt. Montgomery doesn’t strike me as a Marlowe.
Fromsett. (Trotter) That’s some over emoting right there.
Is that Mr. Drysdale from the Beverly Hillbillies? He was better in that show.
Dragnet cops?
Why am I watching this movie at all?
Wait, they made a movie of that book? It’s a fun Marlowe, but now I see the movie used some experimental viewpoint approach…hmmm.
Wasn’t sure until I opened the thread if this was an Arthurian mythology series or what. Nice to see Natalie Portman getting some work tho.
Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds, distributin’ swords, is no basis for a system of government.
I saw it many years ago. Interesting “Point of View Cinematography”. Montgomery wanted to match the novel’s protagonist narration. I didn’t realize it did so badly. Bad Chandler is better than no Chandler.
In no particular order:
I thought Robert Montgomery did fine as a tough guy detective.
As for over-emoting, Audrey Totter wasn’t alone. How about Lloyd Nolan and Jayne Meadows? I blame Montgomery for this, as he was also the director.
On the other hand, I’ve never seen Audrey Totter in anything where she was subtle or subdued.
Derace Kingsby, the head of the firm, was Leon Ames, the father in Meet Me In St. Louis. Milburn Drysdale was played by Raymond Bailey, a grade z TV actor who never did anything else of note.
I guess this must be true, I can’t stop watching this if I ever run into it.
Raymond Bailey was all over TV series in the 1950s. He did well enough for a condo and a house boat in Laguna Niguel.
Frederic March also did subjective camera in his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I don’t like it as a technique. It draws too much attention to itself and spoils the overall tone of the film.
I thought Robert Montgomery was a fine Marlowe, otherwise.
I don’t know, but I didn’t like Montgomery’s voice. Since you don’t see much of him his speech is much more prominent.
I thought about it. Why would an actor agree to not be as visible in a movie? Seems contraindicated to his business. I realize he was a very popular screen star at the time. But we all know how fickle that business is.
I suppose in the end it didn’t hurt his career.
Oh, and the bit at the end of the movie was just laughable.
Haven’t seen Lady in the Lake in quite some time, but my recollection is that the mystery isn’t all that interesting. The subjective camera makes it more interesting, but only for a little while before it grows tiresome. It’s a gimmick with a short shelf life not meant to sustain feature-length.
Orson Welles was going to use the subjective camera on an adaptation of Hearts of Darkness before he wisely abandoned the project for Citizen Kane. Dark Passage (1947) used the device for about half its length, which was still too long, imo. State Secret (1950) used it only for its opening sequence and it worked pretty well.
I generally don’t like Robert Montgomery as an actor – like Warren Beatty, he often played characters who were dumber than he was and he did not pull it off well – but I recall him being okay as Marlowe. Certainly better than George Montgomery in The Brasher Doubloon (1947), arguably better than James Garner, Elliot Gould or Liam Neeson.
Audrey Totter is always great in my eyes and she had some of the best padded shoulders in the business. She is both subtle and subdued in The Set Up (1947), arguably her best film (though I would say Lady in the Lake is her best performance).
There was a good reason for that – during that part of the film it was Bogart’s voice but a very different face, so they would have needed either to hire an actor to lip-sync Bogart’s dialog, or to do some major makeup-fu on Bogart so he would look really different.
I will add that the subjective camera added to the sense of claustrophobia and fear in the first part of the film.
beat me to it
I always wanted to know what he looked like before the surgery, tho’
They showed a newspaper photo from the original trial at some point, I think in Bacall’s apartment. I don’t mind not seeing that face as a live person.
I looked for a screen shot from the film but couldn’t find one. I’ve always wondered who they got to pose for that.
Here’s a helpful tidbit about that photo, from IMDB but otherwise unsourced.
The photo of Vincent before surgery is shown in the newspaper and elsewhere. It represents the height of photo manipulation of the day, with carefully masked double-exposures and careful airbrushing. The lower half of the face is that of character actor Kenneth MacDonald. The upper half, from just below the bridge of the nose, is that of Bogart himself.
And here’s a link to a photo of that actor, from his IMDB page.