MARLOWE (1969)

Sharon Farrell and James Garner

MARLOWE (1969). Director: Paul Bogart. 

Philip Marlowe (James Garner of The Children's Hour) is hired by mousy Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell of It's Alive) to find her brother, but during his search the P.I. uncovers a blackmail plot involving squeaky queen sitcom star Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicutt of Dallas), who is having an affair with a racketeer named Steelgrave (H. M. Wynant). Little does he know that both cases are connected. Marlowe stumbles over a couple of corpses of men who have been killed with an icepick, and does his best to get along with Lt. French (Carroll O'Connor) and Sgt. Beifus (Kenneth Tobey). Two other characters Marlowe has to deal with are sexy stripper Delores Gonzales (Rita Moreno) and the karate-chopping enforcer Winslow Wong (Bruce Lee). 

Garner with Hunnicutt

Marlowe is an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1940's novel "The Little Sister," and this film almost manages to make a little more sense of its convoluted plot, but not quite. The movie updates the story to the sixties when it was filmed, so one has to look at Garner -- who is not bad -- as an alternate modern version of Philip Marlowe, but hardly the real deal. The best performances in this are actually from a truly excellent Sharon Farrell, O'Connor (who gets one speech taken from the novel), Tobey, and Moreno, who does a very sexy dance late in the proceedings. William Daniels and Jackie Coogan also have good roles and run with them. Hunnicutt is adequate in a smaller and less showy role than Garner or Farrell, although she gets billed after Garner. She and Farrell have a brief "cat fight."

Paging Rockford

Bruce Lee features in two sequences. The first is a funny one in which Lee breaks up Marlowe's office, upsetting the apparently straight hairdresser, Chuck (Christopher Cary), who is friendly with Marlowe, takes his messages, and teaches his trade to women in the office next door. The second is a really stupid sequence in which Lee -- discombobulated after Marlowe suggests he's gay -- hurls himself at his opponent and goes right over a railing several stories high. (As others have noted, any fight between Lee and Garner would actually not have ended well for Garner.)

Garner never appeared again as Marlowe, but he fled to television and starred as a private eye in The Rockford Files for several years beginning in 1974. 

Verdict: This is a modestly entertaining, somewhat confusing private eye flick made twenty years too late. **1/2. 

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE

Art Garfunkel and Candice Bergen

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE  (1971). Director: Mike Nichols. Screenplay by Jules Feiffer.

In college post-WW2, two friends, Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel), contemplate getting laid and what type of woman they'd like to wind up with. Sandy begins dating Susan (Candice Bergen), but so does Jonathan, sleeping with Susan behind his friend's back.

Ann-Margret and Jack Nicholson

Years go by. Although married, Sandy wants more excitement in the bedroom and hooks up with the more aggressive Cindy (Cynthia O'Neal). while Jonathan shacks up with Bobbie (Ann-Margret of State Fair), who -- a la Rosalind Russell in Picnic -- is almost desperate to get married. Things don't go smoothly with either relationship, but then Jonathan is a complete chauvinistic pig -- his truly disgusting nature becomes even more apparent by the end -- and Sandy, although apparently more "sensitive," isn't much better.

Best friends? Garfunkle and Nicholson

Carnal Knowledge was a popular and admired film in its day, probably due to its frankness, but it doesn't hold up well. It is an absorbing picture nevertheless because of the acting and because there's some suspense over what will happen to the characters. Bergen, Ann-Margret, and Garfunkel (so good you wished he did much more acting) are all excellent, and while Nicholson was already falling into that certain stock "Jack Nicholson" mode, his performance is also good. O'Neal and Rita Moreno are quite effective in smaller roles.

Triangle: Bergen, Garfunkel, with Nicholson in background

But one is left with the sensation that this screenplay was an old and unsatisfactory stage play dusted off by Jules Feiffer and turned into a movie by a compliant Mike Nichols working in a Woody Allen mode. The movie, deliberately paced and with long takes, is expertly shot by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno [Haunted Summer]. Some scenes, such as when Jonathan shows Sandy and his new girlfriend slides of all of the women he's screwed (Susan gets in there by "mistake"), are quite contrived. Mike Nichols also directed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Verdict: Two pigs in a poke. **1/2.

GARDEN OF EVIL

Gary Cooper contemplates eternity

GARDEN OF EVIL (1954). Director: Henry Hathaway.

"Age before beauty." -- Richard Widmark to Gary Cooper.

Down in Mexico, a desperate woman, Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward), importunes a group of strangers to take a long trip through Apache country to rescue her husband, John (Hugh Marlowe), who is trapped in a mine. The strangers consist of Hooker (Gary Cooper), Fiske (Richard Widmark), Luke (Cameron Mitchell), and Vincente (Victor Manuel Mendoza). As they effect this rescue, the restless Apaches are keeping watch ... That's the slight storyline to this mediocre picture that does boast some stunning CinemaScope photography (Krasner and Stahl), beautiful location settings, and a score by Bernard Herrmann that is much, much better than the movie deserves. As for the acting, Cooper is listless, Mendoza is fine, Marlowe [Elmer Gantry] is relatively terrible, Hayward is just okay, Widmark [The Tunnel of Love] has a bit more vitality, and Mitchell [Man-eater of Hydra] comes off best as the deceptively friendly Luke. In its attitude towards Native Americans, this is not a progressive western, but then in this pretentious and weak screenplay all of the characters are paper thin. Rita Moreno shows up very briefly as a saloon singer.

Verdict: Great to look at and listen to, but that's it! **.

SO YOUNG, SO BAD

Ann Francis and adorable tyke

SO YOUNG, SO BAD (1950). Director: Bernard Vorhaus.

Dr. John Jason (Paul Henreid of Between Two Worlds) is the new psychiatrist at a reformatory for girls that is run with complete disregard for these young ladies' welfare by Mr. Riggs (Cecil Clovelly) and stone-faced nurse Mrs. Beuhler (Grace Coppin). Jason tries to get support from the rather beautiful assistant superintendent Ruth Levering (Catherine McLeod), but she's too afraid of losing her job. When Jason tries to get the girls to talk about abuses to board members, they clam up, having been threatened by Riggs or Beuhler. Jason is particularly concerned with four of the young women: Loretta (Anne Francis) who tries to use sex as a weapon; Jackie (Anne Jackson), who is sullen and may have a crush on Loretta; Delores (Rita Moreno), who is pretty and shy; and Jane (Enid Pulver), who is withdrawn and needs help. Loretta wants to give up her baby boy for adoption but while she pretends to have no feelings is more emotionally involved than she lets on. So Young, So Bad was released the same year as the more famous Caged, and the two movies have many similarities [although the latter film takes place in a bonafide prison with older inmates]. SYSB is a fairly absorbing film with real attempts at characterization, and is greatly bolstered by the performances of the cast, especially Francis [Forbidden Planet], Jackson, and Moreno, all of whom would go on to have highly successful careers [Pulver did a little TV work after she completed this film]. Instead of a kitten as in Caged, the girls have a pet rabbit that gets stomped on by the abusive Beuhler. The four adult leads are all quite credible. An interesting scene has Jackie utterly collapsing into anguished tears after she sees Loretta bonding with her baby, as if she feels left out or is suffering from lesbian heartbreak. Vorhaus also directed The Affairs of Jimmy Valentine. Henreid later directed movies somewhat similar to this one.

Verdict: Some very good acting helps put this over. ***.

RICHARD DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE Season 4

Diamond (David Janssen) takes a call on his car phone

RICHARD DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE Season 4. 1960.

In its fourth and final season, Richard Diamond had only ten episodes. The show remained watchable, bolstered by David Janssen's smooth playing and some decent scripts. Among the more notable: Diamond is hired to find a missing woman even though everyone he talks to denies her very existence in "Double Trouble." Diamond investigates whether or not "The Lovely Fraud" is genuinely crippled or faking it for the money. And Rick is hired to find a poodle whose pretty owner has been murdered in "Accent on Murder." Guest-stars on the brief fourth season include Rita Moreno, James Coburn, Lyle Talbot and Joanna Barnes. Although a few episodes can be found on DVD or on youtube, or in private editions collected from broadcast, Richard Diamond is essentially a forgotten series but for TV detective buffs. The show was by no means a failure, however, but Janssen would have to wait for the super-hit The Fugitive to become a household name.

Verdict: For hardcore private eye fans. **1/2.