Thanks for the memories!

How sad is this?

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

These remarks are limited and scope and concern the episode 'Finger- Man.' Powers Boothe is a quite likable actor, and the show is enjoyable, especially considering that in the waning years of the Reagan days American audiences were regaled with such gems as A-Team and Airwolf, so I wish to cast these criticisms with a bit of perspective. That being said, it's hard for me to watch this show because it gets a LOT of period details wrong. Hammett was writing his stories about the 1920s or even earlier, but Chandler set his in the 1930s and 1940s, but this series seems to confound the fashions of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Cars, furniture, clothing, hairstyles of these three periods are juxtaposed in one episode. One example among many: the fat rich ringleader in the episode is using a brass candlestick telephone; a guy with that much money, living ostentatiously in the mid to late nineteen- thirties would NEVER have used such a phone--they were totally passe by that time, it would be akin to using a 2 pound Motorola brickphone today instead of a couple of ounce millimeter thin smartphone. But clearly this kind of set-design is geared to average audiences who are clueless and will just swallow it and think 'gee! what a weird telephone!' Men's hair (too long in back) and ladies' styles also off, as are the mens' hats--and also how the hats are worn; you can just tell these modern actors probably NEVER wear hats, so when they wear them, they are telegraphing (at least to me); HELLO, I am an ACTOR WEARING a HAT see, THIS is the 1930s, I HAVE A HAT.' The interior of Marlowe's flat is also anachronistic; looks as if he has wall to wall carpet, which I've hardly ever seen during that period. Just a myriad of little details wrong, which, collectively, are a thorn in the eye. The gunfight was also almost laughably bad, both in how it was played and what happened. For example, a fellow doesn't get shot in the shoulder by a Colt .45 and not get knocked down, or react in some way. It's unfortunate that this series seems like it had almost all the makings of something pretty darn good--but ended up distinctly so-so; was it meant to be tongue-in-cheek, cartoonish? A dream-like evocation of the past, a little bit like the Singing Detective perhaps? Or did they have too little time, too little money, (or too much coke, after all, it was the eighties) and they figured, 'hey, this is America, HBO, and why take the trouble to cast pearls before swine?' Now, I did personally enjoy seeing the street scenes filmed on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, in the early 1980s, and if one looks carefully, one can see Carodin's dilapidated clothing store and the Deli on the corner of Fair Oaks, a now long-defunct era of Old Town Pasadena before it was plasticized, which, like Raymond Chandler's LA, is now gone forever.

I remember watching the first season of this when it came out and absolutely adored it. Powers Boothe's portrayal was just right. It was around the same time that Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes first aired, so we were spoilt for quality detective drama. If I recall correctly, it was part financed by London Weekend Television (part of the ITV network at the time) and shown on ITV in prime time. I recall them announcing that, even though the show was popular, they would not be making any more after the initial five due to it being so expensive. Nearly every item in the show was a genuine period piece, with very little being reproduced. This, and the fact that it was shot in the UK, made it extremely costly. The second series was never shown properly in the UK. Odd episodes would turn up in the early hours of the morning and, although the production values were not as good, the shows were still enjoyable. Hopefully someone will produce a restored version of the shows on DVD (previous comments claim that the quality is not too good). I also think it's time for Marlowe to appear again. James Caan's version in "Poodle Springs" didn't quite work as I thought he was a little too old for the role. Ideally, Marlowe should be in his late thirties/early forties: young enough to take (or throw) a punch, but old enough to have "been around the block" a few times. Ten years ago, Harrison Ford would have been ideal, but now I'm not sure. Any ideas .... ?

Raymond Chandler practically invented the detective noir genre with his Philip Marlowe novels and stories. The trench coat. The fedora. The monotone first-person narration and the cynical outlook on life. They all started with Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.So it's only appropriate that several actors have brought Phillip Marlowe to life over the years, most notably James Garner and Humphrey Bogart.It's hard not to keep Humphrey Bogart's portrayal in mind when watching a Philip Marlowe mystery, and most actors understandably pale by comparison. That said, Powers Boothe still does a worthy job. You must put all of the sleazy roles he's ever played out of your head. He perfectly portrays Philip Marlowe as a cynical private investigator with a tough exterior but a heart of gold.Samuel Matlovsky's musical score is the icing on the cake. The background music, and especially the haunting theme tune, definitely enhance the 1930's gumshoe atmosphere.I've only seen a few episode from the '86 series. These episodes of "Phillip Marlowe: Private Eye" are filled with clever twist and turns, exciting gun fights, and plenty of tough-talking wise guys. If nothing else, they will inspire you to seek out the writings of Raymond Chandler.

Long before Sex in the City or Six Feet Under, HBO proved itself to be at the cutting edge of television when it released several episodes of Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, with Powers Boothe as the best Marlowe in film history (even better, in my view, than Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum). He's so authentic, so dead-on perfect, that I can't read Chandler's Marlowe stories without thinking about him. The episodes that aired in 1983 were, in my view, far superior to the series in 1986. The writing was better, the story lines were tighter, and they had a gritty, noirish atmosphere that made you think of Los Angeles in the early 1940s. Unfortunately, the 1986 episodes did not have the same Chandleresque seedy Los Angeles feel. For years, I watched and re-watched the original episodes on videotape, but--alas--I've long since lost those taped episodes and I haven't been able to find copies of them ever since. Let's hope HBO re-releases them on DVD. This was television at its absolute finest.post-script: After writing this review, I discovered that the episodes are indeed available on DVD. What a great day I'm having!