Poodle Springs Film Review

Director: Bob Rafelson
Year: 1998
Rating: 7.0

Raymond Chandler only wrote four chapters of a proposed Philip Marlowe novel before he passed away in 1959. Four short chapters. In which most of it is given to describing a swank home where he is going to live. "It was a very handsome house except it stank decorator". In the third chapter he runs into Manny Lipschultz who needs his help and Marlowe beats up a couple of his hoods. Then Chandler died. It was a long time coming as he spent his final years in a stupor of alcohol and depression. He put a gun in his mouth once and pulled the trigger. It was a misfire. He wanted to die but he had a lot of friends who kept him going. Thirty years later Robert Parker finished the book for Chandler. Parker who was the author of the Spencer books was a huge fan of Chandler - as were pretty much every detective writer of tough private eyes - and so took it upon himself to write this and then later wrote Perchance to Dream, a sequel to The Big Sleep. Poodle Springs chronologically follows Chandler's last novel, Playback, written during those drunken hazy days and considered his weakest book.

There have been a few Marlowe books written by others over the years - The Black Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black (being made into a movie with Liam Neesen as Marlowe), The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide, Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne (Marlowe in his 70s') and a bunch of short stories by various mystery writers collected in Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration in which Parker writes the lengthy introduction. Haven't read the short stories but the novels are not great - the Parker ones are probably the best. Chandler was a descriptive genius - his plots could be a little messy but you read him for the prose. He was a poet before he turned to detective novels and it shows. But in Poodle Springs, Parker inherits a married Marlowe. A terrible mistake. A whimsical mistake. Marlowe is saddled with a rich wife, the daughter of a money bags. The domesticity is all wrong. Chandler has him and his wife unable to keep their hands off one another. Why? Being a private eye is a lonely business by its nature. The late hours, the danger, the low pay and the temptation of women in distress. Very few private eyes in books have a relationship - but Spencer did - so perhaps Parker was the right guy to write this.

It strikes one that this was Chandler's fantasy- the marriage he wanted to have. His wife Cissy had died in 1954 and it crushed him. He fell into a big black hole. He had always been a drinker - fired for it earlier in his life from a well-paying job - but now it became a constant companion. He was consistently in and out of hospitals. It was an unusual relationship with his wife. She was the step-mother of a friend from the war and he fell in love with her. 18 years older. Clearly a substitute for his mother who he lived with till she died. When he was working for the oil company and making good money, he cheated on her all the time but when he was fired, they reconciled and he became devoted to her.

In this book, Marlowe marries into a wealthy family and they trade kisses and witticisms equally. Who knows where Chandler would have taken it. Her name was Linda Loring - and she had appeared as a minor character in his two previous books. In The Long Goodbye she is the sister of his friend's wife and he sleeps with her. First time Marlowe ever did in one of the books. Then in Playback she calls him right at the end and proposes they go on a trip together. So, it makes sense. It must have been a great trip.

HBO decided to produce a film and got some heavy hitters - James Caan as Marlowe, Tom Stoppard as the screenwriter and Bob Rafelson as the director. Admittedly, Rafelson hadn't done much since The Postman Always Rings Twice in 1981 but he had two great films on his resume - The King of Marvin Gardens and Five Easy Pieces. He does a fine job here - no classic by any means but coherent and noir enough. Stoppard adds a few murders but keeps it on an even keel and lets the corruption slowly ooze out. Caan is so easy to watch in everything - he is a good Marlowe trying to retain his independence and integrity. Rugged, laconic and cynical of anything and everything. A working class gumshoe who is suspicious of anything fancy and sophisticated. Unless it is a Casablanca chess opening.

A woman sways into his office with seduction written on her like a red magic marker. I need your help. My husband has been missing for four days. He kisses her. It is his wife (Dina Meyer). The phone rings. It is another detective asking for his help in a stakeout. Two shots. Marlowe finds him dead in a red convertible. It isn't really his case but a detective always needs to find out what is behind it. And it takes him down a road of dead bodies, bigamy, corruption and scandal. If Marlowe ever comes to your house, it means you are dead. They always are. This is up on YouTube in far less than pristine condition but watchable.