Lady in the Lake 
                                          
Director: Robert Montgomery
Year: 1946
Rating: 4.0
It felt like I ate a bucket of sand while watching this. Dry sand. Everything about it is wrong. Admittedly, I just re-read the book and was comparing it to that as we went along. And the changes just make no sense. Maybe it would be better if I hadn't, but I doubt it. Raymond Chandler spent three years writing this novel, going back and forth between this and Farewell, My Lovely. In the end, like with most of his novels, he based it on one of his short stories - in this case three of them that he fused together. It isn't his best work, but it is a fine novel with a surprise waiting at the end like finding your wife in bed with the milkman.  It isn't really his plots that matter - often overly complicated - but his elegant writing, his descriptive eye, his tough guy dialogue, his love for the sublime metaphor or clever simile. And for Marlowe. One of the great detectives in literature.



Chandler as usual was drinking too much and on the edge of being broke. His books never actually sold a lot. In the 3-4,000 copy range. It wasn't until his publisher decided to release his earlier books in paperback format that he sold like gangbusters. Back then it wasn't a common practice to re-issue books in paperback. He sold the movie rights to this book for $30,000 and wrote a film script for it. But it was tossed out and another author was brought on. Though he kept the high-level plot, he makes a mess out of it as if he took Chandler's book and threw the pages up in the air and used that as his basis. Chandler hated the final product. For good reason. The author should have been charged for negligent manslaughter.



Robert Montgomery asked MGM to direct this film. His debut. The books with Marlowe are written in first person. And Montgomery decides to take that concept and wrap his film around it. Most of it is shot POV with the camera lens standing in for Marlowe. It sees through his eyes. MGM wasn't pleased. What? You never see the star? Well, a few times we see his reflection in the mirror and in a really awkward manner, a few times Marlowe speaks directly to the audience to explain things that have happened off screen. Important things. In the book, he is hired by a husband to find his missing wife and Marlowe goes up to their cabin in the woods. While he is there, they discover the wife of the groundskeeper drowned in the water. And he investigates that as well because he wonders if they are connected. All that is explained by Montgomery/Marlowe to us in his monologue. To save time? To save money? It is a vital part of the story that leads to everything else. If they wanted to save time, they should have cut out the romance that never happens in the book. It alone almost kills this film.



But it isn't the POV that ruins this film. You can give Montgomery credit for trying something new along with the Fourth Wall aspects. It doesn't really work but he tried something different. Bogart used it later in the year in Dark Passage for half the film - though it made sense there as he changes his looks halfway through. The only time I appreciated the POV was when a seductive secretary walks into the office and then walks back with everything on overload and the camera never leaves her for a second. The real weakness of the film though is Montgomery as Marlowe.



He gets Marlowe all wrong. Marlowe is a knight errant always following his code of chivalry and justice. From the books we never learn much about him - in the first-person narrative he never talks about himself or his background. We know him from his actions and he is admirable. He searches for justice for $10 a day plus expenses. He gets chances to back out or take money and never does. This Marlowe is basically a jerk - unlikable - full of snide, sarcastic and snappish remarks. Don Rickles as Marlowe. It is like Detective 101. Not everything they say has be a jibe, an insult, sarcastic.



Which makes the upcoming romance ridiculous - as phony as a puppy passing itself off as a rooster. The scene of her telling him how much she needs him is like fingernails across the blackboard.  A hard-bitten woman who turns into mush because of his acidic charm. You don't buy it for a second. So many things are off about this that I could write a book - why do they move it to Christmas, why does Lavery (the lover of the missing wife) sound like he escaped from Gone with the Wind, why does Marlowe get knocked out twice and doused with booze, why does the Captain of police get two phone calls from his family asking him to come home from work that we have to listen to, why doesn't Marlowe carry a gun at crucial times, why has he become a writer of short fiction. Why didn't they use Chandler's script.



There is a solid cast which helps you get through this - Lloyd Nolan, Audrey Totter, Tom Tully as the Captain, Leon Ames as the husband, Jayne Meadows as the landlady and Lila Leeds as the secretary. The film didn't do well and MGM sent Montgomery packing. He bounced back though with his next film - Ride the Pink Horse which he directed and has a great reputation.