Marlowe (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ½

Marlowe (2022) – N. Jordan

As a film noir aficionado, I just couldn’t ignore this latest attempt to revive the genre, especially as it is set in the true noir period (1940s/50s), rather than positioned as a modern day neo-noir (although some of these can be brilliant). Liam Neeson is the latest to don the (gum)shoes of Philip Marlowe, the hard-boiled private detective protagonist of Raymond Chandler’s best works (The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye), succeeding Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, and more recently James Garner, Elliott Gould, and Robert Mitchum. Indeed, Neeson’s portrayal most resembles that of Mitchum who played Marlowe in a pair of 1970s reboots as an older, tired version of the private eye, nearly washed up, and not the wry and witty smart-arse of Bogart or Powell. This might be too generous to Neeson, however, and it might be more accurate to say that he is miscast here. Neil Jordan’s film also resembles those Mitchum vehicles (directed by Dick Richards) by playing things fairly straight (with only a few spare jokes about Christopher Marlowe that might make you hope for a pastiche). But alas what began promisingly as an homage to a treasured genre soon settled into the turgid form of the made-for-TV movie (notwithstanding the presence of Jessica Lange, Diane Kruger, Alan Cumming and especially Danny Huston who drift in and out like so many well-paid guest stars), finally imploding in a corner while viewers ponder what they came here for.

 

Fourteen Hours (1951)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Fourteen Hours (1951) – H. Hathaway

Still working through my film noir watchlist and feeling surprised that this “small film” about a man threatening to jump from the 16^th floor of a Manhattan hotel is actually more of a big budget thriller than the quickie B-movie I had assumed it to be.  Veteran director Henry Hathaway keeps things moving even as most of the action takes place out on the narrow ledge where charismatic lug Paul Douglas tries to talk skittish Richard Basehart back into his room.  Screenwriters John Paxton and Joel Sayre succeed by sticking to reality – the cops try every rational solution to lure Basehart in (or grab him), including bringing in his estranged parents (Agnes Moorehead and Robert Keith) and recently dumped girlfriend (Barbara Bel Geddes) to encourage him to choose life (and to give audience’s more of his backstory and motivation).  A few subplots featuring members of the huge crowd down below (including Grace Kelly in her first film) show how people reflect on the value of their own lives in the face of such a dark spectacle. But as slick as this is, you can’t escape the bitter noir under-taste.