Mon 13 Apr 2020
A Private Eye TV Episode Review: PHILIP MARLOWE “The Ugly Duckling†(1959).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[5] Comments
PHILIP MARLOWE “The Ugly Duckling.†ABC. 06 October 1959 (Season One, Episode One.) Philip Carey (Philip Marlowe), William Schallert. Guest Cast: Virginia Gregg, Rhys Williams, James Griffith, Barbara Bain, Addison Richards. Writer: Gene Wang. Director: Robert Ellis Miller.
It is difficult to say for sure, since very few of the series’ episodes have survived (a second one can be found below), but this early attempt at adapting Raymond Chandler’s iconic character Philip Marlowe did not really have a lot going for it. The star Philip Carey has the right first name, and physically he looks the part, but he has none of the star power that was needed to push the series anywhere near the top.
It is a young Barbara Bain, pitch perfect in her role of a golddigger “other woman,†who makes this first episode of the season worth watching. She has her hooks in nebbish James Griffith’s character, and won’t let go. Not even the $10,000 dollars Marlowe offers ger on the man’s wife’s behalf will make her change her mind.
It comes as no great surprise the, that she is a mysterious killer’s first victim. There are enough people in the story for the deceptive fans watching to puzzle over, but the fact remains that (again based on only this first episode) that it need not have been Marlowe who was the detective. Any generic PI would do just as well.
NOTE: Michael Shonk covered this episode very briefly on this blog quite some time ago. The accompanying video disappeared from YouTube very quickly thereafter, but as you see, it has returned, at least for a little while.
Michael later did a more complete overview of the series. You can read it here, and I strongly suggest you do.
April 14th, 2020 at 1:29 am
The most interesting thing may be in the credits where he is properly driving a Chrysler as in THE BIG SLEEP and has a gun hidden under the glove compartment, again from THE BIG SLEEP. It’s a detail mentioned only once in the series, but shown in the Bogart version.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:01 am
Are the episodes based on Chandler stories, or did they just use the name “Philip Marlowe”?
April 14th, 2020 at 10:18 am
From looking at the titles only, my answer is no. Here’s the list from IMDb:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052501/episodes?season=1
April 14th, 2020 at 1:03 pm
The last link to my second look at this series remains full of information but suffers from some dead links I need to learn from that).
The episodes were not based on any Chandler stories (at least not the Wang group, those written in the first patch that never were filmed might have). Chandler was to be involved in the first attempt and approved of Carey as Marlowe. The production suffered from lots of drama behind the scenes and Chandler died before the series finally reached TV screens.
Steve as far as that first post I did about TV not on official DVD but on YouTube, even I forgot I did that.
April 14th, 2020 at 2:18 pm
You can’t do too much about broken links. The Internet is full of sites and webpages no longer there. That later post you did on Marlowe garnered 41 comments, Michael, and anyone wanting information about the PHILIP MARLOWE TV show should make sure to read those too. Even Gene Wang’s son showed up and left a couple of comments.