Lady In The Lake

Lady in the Lake (1946... or 1947)

Runtime: 103 long minutes

Directed by: Robert Montgomery

Starring: Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully, Jayne Meadows

From: MGM

Somehow, this misogynistic Phillip Marlowe shot in POV film is set at Christmas time. For a few years now I've known of Lady in the Lake; who can forget hearing about a noir with the unique gimmick of it being entirely POV after the intro where Marlowe talks to the camera. The only film up to last night that I had seen w/ the character was the legendary The Big Sleep. One day that will be revisited as that was watched years before I even joined Letterboxd. I recalled that being MUCH better than this disappointed that wasted the POV aspect.

Perhaps in print form the original Raymond Chandler story was better or if it was done in a more traditional fashion that allowed for the archetypal tropes of the genre to really shine. Then again, it wasn't the tale that was the big issue... it was the not so insignificant problem of this world's Phillip Marlowe being a real unpleasant misogynistic jerk! If you believe in “canceling characters” then you probably will do so once you quickly notice that Marlowe constantly interrupts all the females when they try to complete even one sentence in his presence. He's not a saint to the male gender either. Don't cancel ME when I note that more than one woman in the cast might have been given the direction to “have a resting bitch face.” It's not a phrase I ever use myself and the difficult task of having to act right into a camera may be the reason why. Among the performances, Audrey Totter was the bona fide highlight... both her and her eyes.

A shame that this experiment did not work as an example of its genre or as a movie in general. As others have noted, Lady in the Lake seems like one of those point and click computer games, as if it was Heavy Rain or one of the products of the late (and missed by me) Telltale Games. I'd love to play a first person point and click noir tale like Heavy Rain (which was just fine), even one based on this story... as long as the lead is not a horse's ass, that is.