A Hollywood blog is referencing a Variety report that actor, Clive Owen has been hired by Universal Studios to play the hardcore private detective, Philip Marlowe.
The fictional Marlow character was created by Raymond Chandler for a series of detective novels starting with “The Big Sleep”, published in 1939.
While Hollywood loves to portray private detectives as the old style “Gunshoe,” modern day investigators prefer a much more contemporary portrayal. Hopefully, viewers will appreciate the new movie for its nostalgic value and not assume that modern day private detectives, or private investigators follow the Marlow style.
What do you think?
Patrick: The weather here couldn’t be better. As to Marlowe, they should remember he’s not somebody to screw with. They also say this about him:
“He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.”
Roy How is the weather on the islands? I have to agree it’s not bad as a creed and code goes. But they hopefully they will not change Marlowe into a sleeze bag.
I think “Marlowe” had more to do with the mystique that still surrounds our profession today than any other character, fictional or real. Take for example this sort of private eye’s creed that he believes in:
“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”
Hokey, perhaps, but not all that bad as creeds and codes of conduct go.