Lady in the Lake

Philip Marlowe wants to give up detective work. He has written a crime story and sent it to a magazine. He is called in; the editor Adrienne Fromsett wants to see him. But the story is not the matter: she wants her employer's wife found and needs Marlowe for it. The woman has been missing for months. Marlowe takes the job. The trail leads to a lake, a rented house and a police officer. The bodies mount up. Throughout, Marlowe's face is seen only in mirrors; the camera is his eye and the events are watched directly from his view. Robert Montgomery directs and plays Marlowe. Audrey Totter and Lloyd Nolan are in the cast. The source is Raymond Chandler's novel. The film was shot almost entirely in the first person; an experiment at this scale had not been made before. Special camera rigs were built for the technical difficulties and the actors had to play straight to the lens. The approach was argued over on release and was never attempted again at this scale. At the opening Montgomery speaks to the camera and explains the method to the audience. The narrative takes place at Christmas and choral recordings are used in place of a score. Chandler was not pleased with the screenplay and the novel's plot was substantially changed. Its limit is method; the first person view slows the narrative and the acting turns artificial. Who it is for: viewers who like film noir and formal experiment. Who it is not for: the method is demanding, the pace slow, and the plot tangled.