(formerly TV) Jon Batiste drops track from "Marlowe" soundtrack

[David Bruggeman]

The former LSwSC bandleader has a song on the soundtrack to the Neil Jordan/Liam Neeson film "Marlowe", which debuts in U.S. theaters soon (I've seen conflicting dates) - either today (2/10) or Wednesday (2/15)).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOwkaf2RVg

The film stars Neeson as Philip Marlowe, and the cast includes Jessica Lange, Diane Kruger and Danny Huston. The source material is a 2014 novel written by John Banville.

I like the song, but I don't know if I'll like the film.  The trailer didn't seem that impressive, even with the stacked cast.

David

[Diner]

Thanks for this. I like the song too.

I am a Marlowe fan, but I hadn't heard of this movie until now. (I didn't read Banville's book, but I did listen to a podcast interview with him when it was published.)

I am hopeful, but Neeson's and Cumming's accents have me worried.

[Steve Timko]

I read one Raymond Chandler novel as a kid. I don’t remember which one. So I’m not sure how Philip Marlowe is portrayed in the books. I’ve seen “The Big Sleep” several times and love Humphrey Bogart’s take on Marlowe. He’s sly and maybe a little bit crooked, but not too much. Quite endearing. I wasn’t a fan of Elliott Gould’s hippy Philip Marlowe in “The Long Goodbye.”  The trailer for “Marlowe” shows Liam Neeson beating up people. I’ll wait and see it before passing judgment, but I’m not sure I’ll like a brutish Philip Marlowe.

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[PGage]

I am a huge Chandler (and Hammett) fan. If you like that sort of thing highly recommend reading all of it, starting with short stories (both authors have proto versions of their later Novel length protagonists, either unnamed it differently named).

Marlowe is the more developed character (compared to Spade). Chandler described him in a famous quote: “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

Marlow has his own moral code but he lives in a tough and grimy and complex Los Angeles where the cops are often as dirty and violent as the criminals. Marlow is not above using violence, and even killing people; if the new show depicts him as a bully or a thug they will have it wrong, but if they show him kicking the shit out of a few guys who he thinks deserve it, or shooting someone who is trying to stop him from his Knight’s quest, that would be about right.

Robert Parker’s Spenser is in the mode of Marlow (though Spenser is a more socialized and civilized and watered down version, with a Black friend and a psychotherapist GF).  Parker was given permission by the Chandler estate to complete and unfinished Chandler novel.

Bogie will always be my favorite, but there are other good Marlowe’s out there (Robert Mitchum and James Garner).

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[Diner]

Speaking of hard-boiled detectives, last week on the "Movies!" channel I saw the 1948 movie "I Love Trouble," written by Roy Huggins and based on one of his novels. It's a very tough and gripping noir mystery, very much in the Chandler mode, and I highly recommend it. 

Franchot Tone plays the lead, detective Stuart Bailey. Huggins reused the Bailey character on his later TV series "77 Sunset Strip," with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Bailey, but Tone's version is much more edgy and dangerous, with none of the lightness of the series. If you like Chandler, I think you'll enjoy it.

[Dave Sikula]

Not to get too far off-topic (from TV), but this is something that generally comes up in my world when a Marlowe movie airs on TCM. For me (and many), Dick Powell is far and away the best Marlowe, Bogart is too much of a tough guy for my tastes (you couldn't slip a sheet of paper between his Marlowe and his Spade). Garner should have been perfect, but the movie was terrible. Robert Montgomery is okay (though the first-person camera in "Lady in the Lake" is too distracting), and George Montgomery is a disaster in "The Brasher Doubloon." Mitchum is very good (he's second to Powell for me), but is just a tad too tired and dissipated. I never saw the Powers Boothe series, so I can't judge that. The least said about Altman's travesty, the better.

Personally, I'm -very- much over Brits, Aussies, and the Irish playing 'muricans with their crappy accents, but casting people will always go weak-kneed for actors with "training" (because, obviously, there are no actor training programs in the United States).

I generally like Neeson, but don't expect much from him in this one.

--Dave Sikula