Thu 25 Feb 2016
A TV Pilot Episode Review by Michael Shonk: MARLOWE “Choices” (2007).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[33] Comments
MARLOWE. “Choices.” TV pilot, ABC / Touchstone Pictires, 2007. Cast: Jason O’Mara as Philip Marlowe, Adam Goldberg as Detective Frank Olmeier, Amanda Righetti as Jessica Reeder, Sherman Augustus as John Welan* (this is the onscreen credit but the character was called Thomas in episode). Guest Cast: Jamie Ray Newman as Tracy Faye, Clayton Rohner as Matthew Denzler, Lisa LoCicero as Stephanie Church, Jose Yenque as Ernesto, Aja Evans as Shauna, Marcos A. Ferraez as Zack Battas, Michael B. Silver as Charles Difrisco and Lisa Pelikan as Laura Devin. Directed by Rob Bowman. Crew credits not on this apparent work print but listed in ABC’s press release (source: Futoncritic.com). Creators and executive producers: Carol Wolper and Greg Pruss. Executive Producer: Daniel H. Blatt, Daniel Pipski, Phil Clymer and Sean Bailey. Producer: Jason O’Mara.
“Choices†was a TV pilot and possible first episode for a proposed weekly TV series featuring Raymond Chandler’s character Philip Marlowe. Luckily for all Chandler and Marlowe fans it did not sell.
Set in present day (2007) Los Angeles, former cop Marlowe has been a PI for eight years, has a young beautiful secretary who went to the Effie Perrine Secretarial School, exchanges banter with his pal L.A. Detective Frank Olmeier and has a friend Thomas who is a club owner with all the right connections. Unfortunately, the show’s attempt to modernize Marlowe left the character with more in common with standard TV PIs than Chandlers’ Marlowe.
“Choices†has its positives. The mystery was better than the average TV drama. The plot was a Chandler favorite: Marlowe is hired by a rich man to solve a family problem and is forced to dig deep inside the sad sleazy lives of the L.A. rich and powerful to find the truth.
But there is little else for those looking for Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. The cast performs well but Jason O’Mara’s upbeat Marlowe will not replace George Montgomery let alone Robert Montgomery in the hearts of Marlowe fans. The soundtrack is too modern and light. Rob Bowman’s direction never really gave the story the feel of the city. The script is overburdened with TV PI tropes.
It is currently showing at YouTube:
The story opens as Marlowe is following a man. Funky music plays on the soundtrack as Marlowe drives down the busy L.A. streets. Not surprisingly Marlowe does exposition with standard voiceover narration. Harry Orwell did it better.
A rich man is convinced his wife is having an affair with womanizing millionaire Adam Denzler. He hires Marlowe to prove it. Rather than follow the wife, Marlowe is following Adam. But poor Marlowe gets interrupted when a car pulls out and hits the front fender of his car.
Marlowe knows where Adam lives so he parks outside Adam’s home and waits. A young beautiful woman, Tracy Fay enters Adam’s home. Moments later Marlowe hears a woman’s screams. He runs into the home finding Tracy covered in blood and Adam dead by the pool.
The cops arrive lead by Detective Frank Olmeier. Marlowe and Frank exchange allegedly clever banter. Faster than you can say James Rockford, Marlowe decide to quit the now open police case and rushes off to get paid. So, he did not discover if his client’s wife had cheated on her husband or even if she had been involved with the womanizing Adam. Marlowe does not care. He just wants paid and to get back to his office for a drink.
While waiting for his client to join him Marlowe exchanges sexual innuendos with the client’s wife. There is no doubt the wife is unfaithful, but Marlowe doesn’t care as long as he gets his money.
Marlowe is at his Hollywood office with secretary Jessica taking care of him and office business. They are interrupted by – surprise – Tracy, the bimbo Marlowe met at Adam’s murder. Like the typical femme fatale, Tracy begs for Marlowe’s help.
Marlowe returns to the scene. The cops are still there. Marlowe easily cons a neighbor for the tape from her security cameras that got the license plate number of another car at the scene of the murder.
He teases Frank about the cops not getting the vital tape. But whiny Frank reminds his PI friend how unfair the cop life is. Cops have to deal with hassles like warrants and due process that PI Marlowe doesn’t have to deal with. (One of my top pet peeves about screenwriting is the lazy idea that PIs are above the law and don’t face the same rules cops do.) Buried in paperwork, Frank convinces Marlowe to go question the suspects starting with Adam’s brother Matt who is the sole beneficiary of the family millions.
Matt is a likable beach bum who was happy with his allowance and letting his brother run the business. Conveniently (a word that can not be used too often in describing Marlowe’s detective work) visiting Matt’s beach house are a few of the suspects we will meet later including Charles, a shady club owner and a local politician enjoying the company of one of Tracy’s female friends.
Marlowe visits his friend Thomas. We learn Tracy is a club girl, a woman who goes from nightclub to nightclub in search of rich and powerful men.
Tracy had told Marlowe that she and Adam were in love. Marlowe’s doubts about Tracy increase when he finds her partying at Elements, a nightclub owned by Charles who had been at Matt’s beach house.
Marlowe takes the drunk Tracy home where she tries to seduce him. He resists. When he returns to his car he finds someone had tossed a brick through his car window warning him to stop seeing Tracy.
Marlowe and Frank hang out at Marlowe’s office sharing information between wisecracks. Marlowe gives his warning brick to Frank. Frank shares the news that the other car that had been seen leaving the murder scene belonged to … Sandra Bullock, the famous actress. Sandra had parked her car at the nightclub while she ate at a nearby restaurant that had no parking available.
It is at this point the required twists and TV mysteries clues begin to introduce themselves to Marlowe. Marlowe discusses the future with the nightclub valet who knows who had borrowed Sandra Bullock’s car but is not telling. Once Marlowe apparently leaves he watches the valet run to a payphone and call someone. Marlowe calls Frank and tells him to trace the phone call.
Frank had traced the valet’s call. The person who had taken Bullock’s car and was at the murder scene was Zack Battas who was also the man who delivered the brick to Marlowe. Zack is in love with Tracy who had dumped him. Marlowe meets with Zack and his friends in a back alley for the mandatory smart ass PI gets beat up scene. Marlowe wakes up in a creative but totally unbelievable death trap set by Zack and friends.
Back at his office so secretary Jessica can take care of him, she also reports on the legwork she did about Adam’s companies. The plot continued to grow more interestingly complex.
Finally after some scenes that deal with the murder mystery, Tracy arrives at Marlowe’s office so they can have sex. After Tracy leaves Frank calls with news that Tracy had been arrested in the past for assaulting an old boyfriend.
Marlowe confronts Tracy who claims her attack on the old boyfriend was self defense and that the boyfriend beat her. Angry, Marlowe hits the wall knocking some pictures off the wall, including one with a major clue.
Marlowe starts facing down suspects, eliminating each but finding more and more evil that breeds among the rich and privilege. Marlowe beats a confession out of one suspect but gets shot (whew, I was worried “Choices†might have missed a TV PI cliché).
The twists keep you guessing about the mystery until the end. But if only that had been enough, instead we are forced to endure the pretentious moralizing voiceover trying to convince us that the city had a role in this ordinary murder caused by typical human greed.
While this pleasant TV PI mystery has its moments, it was a failure in its attempt to update Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Where was the lone knight walking down the mean streets? The major reason for the character to use voiceover narration is to reveal exposition without the need of other characters. It keeps the PI a loner and an outsider. The real Marlowe would not have had the standard TV support group — close friend cop and the secretary with a crush. Only Thomas the friend that has all the right connections fit Chandler’s Marlowe’s world.
This clueless adaptation never understood that even a modern version of Marlowe would have a strong moral center. Modern times would not have corrupted Marlowe.
February 25th, 2016 at 2:59 pm
Missed this, and I don’t think I will be catching up with it. Sounds as if it didn’t even try as hard as the Phil Carey half hour series.
Marlowe is not merely cynical, he is a wry moral voice surrounded by corruption, a kind of self aware Quixote who settles if he can save one innocent or semi innocent from the corruption that rises out of money, power, crime, and lust in a town like his L. A. , which he sees as powered by those things.
To update Marlowe truly someone will have to care about the voice of people today the way Chandler cared about the voice then. They will have to understand and seek out the cadence and nuance of modern wise guy jargon and not merely repeat Chandler’s version from another era. One reason it is almost impossible to update Marlowe beyond the early sixties.
Archer would be much easier to do as his voice is less specific to one era and time, less dependent on certain attitudes.
Or maybe someone could actually create something decent of their own rather than try and drag someone else work down to their level.
February 25th, 2016 at 3:01 pm
This reminds me a little of the pilot they did where they tried to move Mike Hammer to Florida and rather than Mickey Spillane they just ended up with a generic private eye called Mike Hammer.
February 25th, 2016 at 4:34 pm
This was a bad pilot. I reviewed it at the IMDB:
–I can tell why this pilot was not picked up; it lacks distinction. And apart from the protagonist’s name, the Los Angeles setting, and a few lame quotations of famous phrases (“Trouble is my business”), it also lacks any meaningful relationship to Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe stories. Jason O’Mara’s thoroughly modern P.I., confident, sexy, and smirky, certainly does not recall Marlowe’s cynical, thoughtful personality in any way whatsoever. And while I enjoy watching hunky television actors in their late 30s and early 40s as well as the next gay guy – you could even call me an aficionado – there is just not enough going on with the character. Or anything here, really.–
February 25th, 2016 at 4:52 pm
1/2. David, the best TV Marlowe I have seen was Powers Boothe because they understood the character was part of an era. Marlowe is more than a hardboiled PI in evil L.A. He is part of a time.
From the first moment in “Choices” you know you might enjoy the TV mystery but Chandler would be hard to find.
February 25th, 2016 at 4:55 pm
Robert Ryan and John Cassavetes are actors I’ve always thought would’ve been interesting Marlowes.
February 25th, 2016 at 4:58 pm
There are two interesting Marlowe’s — Powell and Bogart, with Robert Mitchum edging up on the outside in Farewell My Lovely’s remake.
February 25th, 2016 at 5:12 pm
3. Patrick, we both saw the same pilot.
FutonCritic did a review that raved about how great this was that left me wondering if the critic had ever seen a Philip Marlowe movie. He (Brian Ford Sullivan) could not understand why ABC turned it down.
A look at what ABC did buy for the season 2007-08 makes me wonder if it was too typical and with appeal to men rather than women turned ABC off. ABC added DIRTY SEXY MONEY, ELI STONE, PUSHING DAISIES and WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB to name a few.
Really don’t see the network interested in Chandler’s fans. Which considering this misfire was a lucky thing for Chandler/Marlowe fans.
February 25th, 2016 at 5:28 pm
Gary R. and Barry Lane, my favorite Marlowe was radio’s Gerald Mohr. He had the right sound and I supplied my own vision of Marlowe.
I am no expert on Chandler. I think THE BIG SLEEP is one of the best mysteries ever written but Chandler lacks the wit I personally want in the authors I can find time to read.
To me Bogart is more Sam Spade, a good guy in denial. Mitchum is how I see Marlowe but his Marlowe films suffered in comparison to those made during the 40s and 50s. Powers Boothe had a British tint to his Marlowe that seems to lack from all the rest. Considering the TV Marlowes Boothe had little competition.
I am a fan of writers more than stars but I’d pick Timothy Olyphant (DEADWOOD, JUSTIFIED) among today’s actors as a good Marlowe.
February 25th, 2016 at 5:34 pm
I think I remember reading that Raymond Chandler thought the actor most resembling his conception of Marlowe was Cary Grant. I wonder if he would’ve been okay with Craig Stevens, TV’s PETER GUNN.
February 25th, 2016 at 9:29 pm
9. Gary R., I have found writers tend to be lousy at casting their own characters. Grant had the acting ability to pull off Marlowe but I doubt Stevens could have.
February 25th, 2016 at 9:34 pm
What I wonder is how do you update Philip Marlowe? Could such a character exist in today’s dark fiction? Spade I can see, but I am not sure about Marlowe’s knight with a PI license.
Someday someone will explain why Marlowe has had so many chances at TV and Spade has had none. I find Spade much more complex and interesting than Marlowe.
February 25th, 2016 at 10:19 pm
Whether or not Hammett’s notoriety as part of the Hollywood 10 helped nix a Spade series I don’t know. Eventually even the radio show ended up CHARLIE WILD.
Spade did make one appearance on television in an adaptation of one of the short stories with Richard Conte in the role but like Dick Powell’s second shot at Marlowe in a television adaptation of THE LONG GOODBYE I don’t know if even a Kinescope still exists of the adaptation. There was also a live adaptation of THE GLASS KEY, and at least one Hammett non series short was adapted. Of course there was the THIN MAN series and a later NICK AND NORA pilot, but other than that not much in that period.
Other than the Powell outing and the Phil Carey series there wasn’t a lot of Chandler either and he didn’t have Hammett’s troubles. Maybe they were considered too old hat in the Mike Hammer era, or just too expensive when less expensive material was available.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:10 pm
I think more than one writer thought Cary Grant was his choice to play his character. Didn’t Leslie Charteris say that Cary Grant was his idea of The Saint?
February 25th, 2016 at 11:12 pm
Re Chandler’s vision of Marlowe, early on his basic eye is described as looking a good deal like Cary Grant though later he praised both Bogart and Powell in the role.
His eventual description of Marlowe in a letter he wrote is pretty much Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff from DOUBLE INDEMINITY though it is vague enough to fit Mitchum as well or even James Garner.
Whether it is true or not Mitchum was a bartender who worked at a bar Chandler visited before becoming an actor and claimed Chandler told him he modeled Marlowe physically on his younger self. Certainly the general description of Marlowe from the books, big, dark, attractive if not exactly a pretty boy fits the younger Mitchum.
As I held in an earlier article that appeared here, for me Marlowe is more a voice than a face.
February 26th, 2016 at 12:51 am
12. David, Charlie Wild was not Sam Spade. Wildroot Hair tonic radio Spade’s sponsor wanted to do TV as well as radio, but the cost of making Spade for TV was going to cost too much so they ripped off Spade and created Charlie Wild.
It was Duff as Sam Spade who introduced Charlie Wild to radio audience and both were on NBC’s radio schedule at the same time.
I have seen one WILD TV show and there is little Spade in Charlie (who was a humorless NY PI who hanged around with his cop friend). Reportedly Effie was Wild’s secretary but I have yet to see or hear a CHARLIE WILD with her in it.
There is a rumor of an unsold TV pilot for Sam Spade with Peter Falk in his pre-Columbo days as Spade, but that may be a myth.
In 2013 ABC tried again with Marlowe as a possible TV series with CASTLE creator Andrew Marlowe & Michael DeLuca (CAPTAIN PHILLIPS) the showrunners. Marlowe and his wife were writing the script and planned a smart, sexy, and stylish update for the character. I don’t know if it ever got out of development.
I can only guess that WB still own the rights to Spade, but even CASABLANCA has had two TV series based on the film. Yet no Spade. I can’t think of one character from the past that better fits the dark dramas that are in style today than Spade.
BTW, I have reviewed the Philip Carey TV series here:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=12788
The Charlie Wild/Sam Spade I discussed in my old review of Spade radio series:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog?p=8425
February 26th, 2016 at 12:53 am
Randy, Cary Grant was one of those actors who had the ability to play almost anyone from Bond to The Saint.
February 26th, 2016 at 2:06 pm
michael,
Thanks on clearing up the Charlie Wild connection.
Randy,
Yes, Leslie Charteris considered Grant to be the perfect Saint and there is an illustration of the Saint from THE LAST HERO that looks a good deal like Grant long before there was a Cary Grant actor.
The original models for the Saint were musical comedy star Jack Buchanon and the young Rex Harrison who both ironically were Cary Grant’s models for his persona.
The description of the detective, Mallory, in Chandler’s first short “Blackmailer’s Don’t Shoot” pre dates Cary Grant as a name or face anyone would know, but ironically sounds a lot like Grant right down to the ‘diffident’ touch of gray at the temples.
Though Ian Fleming never mentioned Grant as a possible Bond despite the fact the idea was toyed with when Hitchcock was briefly considering filming FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (James Mason came up too), I have always suspected Grant’s Devlin in NOTORIOUS contributed a great deal to the physical and mental make up of 007.
Grant would have been well cast as almost any of the tall dark heroes of fiction from Hornblower (THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION isn’t that far from Hornblower and based on a Forester novel)to the Toff.
Re Sam Spade, I can imagine the character would be difficult to write. For one thing he is always right, always two steps ahead of everyone else, has few human failings beyond being a bit of a rat with women, and is far less knightly or noble than Marlowe. And too, it may be that Bogart is simply so indelibly everyone’s idea of Spade that no one else would have much of a shot at the part though as michael points out they tried CASABLANCA out twice.
I’m afraid any attempt to do Spade on television would just turn him into a road show Marlowe.
February 26th, 2016 at 2:21 pm
17. David, I agree TV and film would mess up Spade. But when has that stopped Hollywood? Hammett even wrote some short stories with Spade available to adapt.
Can you think of any major popular still well known character that has not suffered a remake or reboot other than Spade? Dang, even James Rockford has had two attempts.
February 28th, 2016 at 1:47 am
I think the Richard Conte episode I mentioned is one of the short stories, but I have never been able to confirm this actually exists.
There are some awful send ups of Spade like the one with George Segal, but not much else.
I did not think, but I know for years Lillian Hellman kept the Op stories out of print thinking they were inferior work so I wonder if she had some influence on Spade being kept off the screen in the period he would most likely have appeared? It is possible she or Hammett were approached and either the money or the people were never right. I’m not sure if he still had any say over the Thin Man on screen at that point.
I can only assume the rights were tied up somehow, the usual reason for such things.
February 28th, 2016 at 2:33 am
David, I always suspected Warner Brothers. I also wondered if it was easier to steal ala CHARLIE WILD than pay for the original.
As for spoofs, Peter Falk did get to play Spade in MURDER BY DEATH.
I know the Hammett books took awhile to reach the e-format because of the owners of the literary rights.
We can’t blame the Red Scare since THE THIN MAN made it to early TV.
Hammett had little respect or love for his work. He attempted and failed more than once to do literary fiction. But his response was always more worried that the check cleared than concern for his legacy.
It is a mystery
February 28th, 2016 at 9:21 pm
Purely based on my own reading, listening, and observations:
Lately, I’ve been noticing that more and more people are speaking out about Lillian Hellman – particularly about what a terrible, miserable person she was.
It’s generally acknowledged that the reason Dashiell Hammett gave up mystery fiction was to please Hellman, who considered the genre to be “beneath” him.
Once they became a couple, Hellman became Hammett’s de facto “literary executor”, even during his lifetime; she always opposed any reprinting of Hammett’s early work in toto.
The sole exception was when Fred Dannay wanted to put the stories out in digest magazine form. According to Mike Nevins’s book, Hellman put Dannay and Lawrence Spivak through some pretty brutal negotiations before even allowing that (and the notably conservative Spivak was likely not an easy sell).
Using this as a template, Hellman’s dealings with other media could be deduced as likely unfriendly. The advance of the ’50s blacklist would only have made matters worse.
After Hammett’s death, Hellman did assemble The Big Knockover collection, but that always had the air of the begrudged –
a belated acknowledgement that the thing Hellman disrespected was what Hammett would be most remembered for.
If I’m reading the story correctly, money was the least of it. Hellman’s control over Hammett was in service of what she felt should have been their shared literary glory; once it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen, Hellman backed off – but only a little.
The foregoing was, of course, mainly speculation.
February 28th, 2016 at 10:39 pm
Perhaps Hellman worked so hard because what a worthless drunk Hammett had become. Have you guys read RETURN OF THE THIN MAN? The behind the scenes stuff is hard to read for a Hammett fan such as myself.
But none of this explains away the 1957 THIN MAN series, that there would have been a SAM SPADE TV series based on the radio series (this according to the radio series producer and sponsors) but it cost too much, and a TV series on THE DAIN CURSE (it could help explain the PI name change).
Chandler’s Marlowe gets two TV series and two attempts (2007 and 2013). And at least eight films.
Hellman died in 1984. Why no Spade during the 80s and 90s when TV was remaking everything from COLUMBO to GET SMART?
David and Mike, you both make great points.
But didn’t TCM and WB just released MALTESE FALCON to play in select movie theatres around the country? Sam Spade has name recognition with all demos. So why no TV series…ever?
Why the attempts to update Marlowe when Spade would need almost no updating? (The answer here is probably due who owns each character).
March 1st, 2016 at 2:38 pm
Just came back from checking some c2c-DVDs of The Thin Man series, noting that Dashiell Hammett’s name appears nowhere in the credits.
My guess: at some point MGM acquired complete control of The Thin Man property from Hammett and Hellman, most likely making a one-time lump sum payment (which Hammett and Hellman probably needed badly), as opposed to a royalty deal which would have made them comfortable in Hammett’s last days.
Why no Sam Spade?
Anybody’s guess.
During Lillian Hellman’s lifetime, it might have been that no one wanted to deal with her, for reasons alluded to above.
Post-Hellman, it may be simply a matter of Spade being “a thing of the past” – something that would have to be “re-imagined” for this day and age.
Back to that ole debbil Demographics.
The Marlowe reboots?
They figure in here too – because all of them, to one extent or another, failed – whether updated or left in period.
As I said, all of this is guesswork, however “educated” it might be.
March 1st, 2016 at 4:46 pm
Mike, I suspect you agree that while we may never know the answer I find it fun searching for one.
That book I mentioned before THE RETURN OF THE THIN MAN is a great source for how the movies were made. Hammett worked on the first three films. The book contains his story outlines for AFTER THE THIN MAN and AFTER THE THIN MAN. It also includes SEQUEL TO THE THIN MAN, an eight page story by Hammett never used. I need to read the book again.
I have asked this before but I can not name any famous detective that has not had at least one TV series/TV Movie except Sam Spade, can anybody?
March 1st, 2016 at 5:25 pm
One that comes to mind right away is Gideon Fell, John Dickson Carr’s well-known detective..
March 1st, 2016 at 5:27 pm
Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone.
March 2nd, 2016 at 1:25 pm
25. GIDEON’S WAY (ITC, 1965-66)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exXRe79nY9I
March 2nd, 2016 at 1:42 pm
26. Grafton’s Kinsey I believe fits and it reminded me of Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole. Crais who got his start in TV has sworn never to let TV get ahold of Cole.
A living author who dislikes or mistrusts the TV business is the most common reason for a lack of adaptations. The most famous was Rex Stout and his Nero Wolfe, a character that has reached the TV screen at least three different times since Stout’s death.
March 2nd, 2016 at 2:11 pm
When it comes to contemporary authors the number of detectives without a TV series or TV Movie is large. Many have made it to theatrical films but not TV.
But Spade is above all of them. Spade, Marlowe, and Archer are considered the must read of all hardboiled mystery fiction. Comments here at Mystery File often discuss how neglected Macdonald’s Archer has become. Yet I will argue Hammett’s Spade has it worse. People remember the classic Bogart movie but little else.
I don’t get the visual interest in Marlowe. The character works because of Chandler’s writing not because of the stories or Marlowe. Hammett writes characters that deserve to be filmed, characters deep enough for other writers to explore.
Time passes most characters by but a handful such as Holmes, Poirot and Marlowe live on. Spade lives on yet remains ignored.
March 2nd, 2016 at 3:10 pm
I was going to mention Hammett’s other character, The Continental Op, but it occurred to me that The Dain Curse was the basis of a TV mini-series starring James Coburn.
March 2nd, 2016 at 3:05 pm
#27. Michael, the link you left took me to a Dean Martin TV concert, but in any case, yes, there was a Gideon’s Way TV series, but the character was George Gideon, based on the books written by J. J. Marric (John Creasey).
March 2nd, 2016 at 4:30 pm
Steve, thanks for the correction.
And lets try this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z25yKZo84Y
And I wonder if your Gideon ever appeared in a TV anthology?
Neither Gideon is remembered today except by old mystery readers such as us. Certainly not on the level of Spade, Marlowe, Holmes, and Christie’s characters.
I am surprised the British missed him.
April 5th, 2020 at 3:15 pm
Eliot Gould was the right height and build for Marlowe. Sterling Hayden was the best thing about that movie. I think he would have a good Marlowe too.
The best Marlowe movies are The Big Sleep (original), and both versions of Farewell my lovely.
But the best realisation of Marlowe on screen was
the Powers Boothe tv series,and he was probably the best Marlowe.
When I saw Double Indemnity for the first time, I thought McMurray would have made a good Marlowe too.
I think the best Marlowe novels are Farewell my lovely, and The long Goodbye.
There was an excellent Japanese mini series adaption of the latter