History Literature / PhilipMarlowe

Besides Chandler's works, Marlowe appeared in [[{{Continuation}} five novels]] - ''El Diez Por Ciento de Vida'' by Hiber Conteris, (translated as ''Ten Percent of Life''), ''Poodle Springs'' (unfinished, [[PosthumousCollaboration completed]] by Creator/RobertBParker), ''Perchance To Dream'' (an original sequel to ''The Big Sleep'', also by Parker), ''The Black-Eyed Blonde'', by John Banville (under his crime-writer alias of "Benjamin Black"), and ''Only To Sleep'', by Lawrence Osborne. There was also a 1988 short story collection to celebrate the centenary of Chandler's birth, by a variety of well-known crime and hardboiled writers.

** Lt. Bernie Ohls, LAPD detective and Marlowe's FriendOnTheForce in ''The Big Sleep'' and ''The Long Goodbye''.

* 2022: [[index]]''[[Film/Marlowe2022 Marlowe]]''.[[/index]] Adapted from the 2014 novel ''The Black-Eyed Blonde'' by "Benjamin Black", and set in [[TheThirties 1939]]. Creator/LiamNeeson plays Marlowe.

* 1975: [[index]]''Film/FarewellMyLovely''.[[/index]] Marlowe is played by Creator/RobertMitchum. Mitchum would later reprise the role for a 1978 version of ''The Big Sleep'', making him the only actor ever to play Marlowe in two different movies. ''Farewell, my Lovely'' is set in 1941 LA, whilst ''The Big Sleep'' takes place in contemporary London.

* 1975: [[index]]''Film/FarewellMyLovely''.[[/index]] Marlowe is played by Creator/RobertMitchum. Mitchum would later reprise the role for a 1978 version of ''The Big Sleep'', making him the only actor ever to play Marlowe in two different movies. Both films are again updated to [[TheSeventies the mid-'70s]].

* Creator/RaymondChandler does this several times with Literature/PhilipMarlowe.

* Creator/RaymondChandler does this several times with Literature/PhillipMarlowe.

Several of Chandler's earlier short stories featuring proto-Marlowe characters were subsequently [[DolledUpInstallment reprinted as Marlowe cases]]. Chandler wrote one original Chandler short story, which was published under various titles but is most often reprinted as "The Pencil".[[note]]Other titles include "Marlowe Takes On the Syndicate", "Philip Marlowe's Last Case", and "Wrong Pidgeon".[[/note]]

* NiceHat: Being set in a time when men were NeverBareheaded. Can't go wrong with a classic fedora.

* FriendOnTheForce: Marlowe was formerly with the DA himself, still has contacts at headquarters, and occasionally befriends some of the more honest cops he meets. The only one to appear in more than one of the books, however, is Bernie Ohls, longtime investigator for the DA. He and Marlowe part on bad terms in ''Literature/TheLongGoodbye''. Red and Lt. Randall, both of whom appear in ''Literature/FarewellMyLovely'', are mentioned in later books but do not reappear in person. "Red" Norgaard had quit the highly corrupt Bay City police force at the time of his introduction, but is later revealed to have been rehired before being drafted. UnseenCharacter Violets M'Gee is also namedropped several times, but only when Marlowe needs to give a reference to a big client.

* ChandlersLaw: Used several times, as the TropeCodifier, but usually with some kind of twist. In ''The Lady in the Lake'', a ''woman'' comes through the door with a gun, and that's only the first of several twists.

* DirtyCop: Many cops are on the payroll of local gangsters -- or even if they're not, their bosses are. [[spoiler:In ''The Lady in the Lake'', one of the cops Marlowe teams up with turns out to be one of the murderers.]]
* EvilGloating: Lampshaded in ''The Lady in the Lake'':
-->'''Marlowe:''' I've never liked this scene. Detective confronts murderer. Murderer produces gun, points same at detective. Murderer tells detective the whole sad story, with the idea of shooting him at the end of it. Thus wasting a lot of valuable time, even if in the end murderer did shoot detective. Only murderer never does. Something always happens to prevent it. The gods don't like this scene either. They always manage to spoil it.

* PinkElephants: In Chapter 18 of ''The Lady in the Lake'', a character refers to a doctor "who ran around all night with a case of loaded hypodermic needles, keeping the fast set from having pink elephants for breakfast."

* AccidentalTruth: In [[spoiler:''The Little Sister'']], intending to express his lack of interest in a case, Marlowe tells a random person that he couldn't care less if they were a previously mentioned long-disappeared killer: [[spoiler:a gangster named "Weepy Moyer"]]. This causes most of the book's plot as [[spoiler:Steelgrave]] mistakenly assume Marlowe knows their secret.

* HorribleHollywood: Features prominently in ''The Little Sister''. [[spoiler: Though in a [[SubvertedTrope surprise twist]], the "immoral" starlet dating a gangster turns out to be the most moral of her family, and her small-town, churchgoing brother, sister and mother are murderously devious.]]

* TheIngenue: In ''The Little Sister'', Marlowe's client Orfamay (the little sister of the title) looks and acts like one. Marlowe refuses to believe anyone can be that innocent. [[spoiler:He's right -- not only is she willing to seduce him (by trying to get him to seduce her), she's blackmailing her own sister.]]

* IWasNeverHere: In ''The Little Sister'', a telephone conversation ends with this trope.
-->'''Dolores Gonzalez:''' One moment, you have not told me what happened.\\
'''Marlowe:''' I haven't even telephoned you.

* ListingTheFormsOfDegenerates: In ''The Little Sister'', Marlowe monologues that Los Angeles has lost its soul:
-->''Now we get characters like this Steelgrave owning restaurants. We get guys like that fat boy that bailed me out back there. We've got the big money, the sharp shooters, the percentage workers, the fast dollar boys, the hoodlums out of New York and Chicago and Detroit -- and Cleveland. We've got the flash restaurants and night clubs that they run, and the hotels and apartment houses they own, and the grifters and con men and female bandits that live in them. The luxury trades, the pansy decorators, the Lesbian dress designers, the riff-raff of a big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup.''
* LoveMakesYouEvil: ''The Little Sister'' has the murderer kill her lover after he throws her over for another. [[spoiler: Or at least, it seems that way for a while.]]

* NothingIsScarier: In ''The Little Sister'', the series takes an unusual turn when the conclusion has Marlowe investigating an isolated estate on a private road. The lack of traffic or people makes it eerily quiet as it is, but then even Marlowe himself suddenly announces something seems off.
-->''[The living room] was curtained and quite dark, but it had the feel of great size. The darkness was heavy in it and my nose twitched at a lingering odor that said somebody had been there not too long ago. I stopped breathing and listened. Tigers could be in the darkness watching me. Or guys with large guns, standing flat-footed, breathing softly with their mouths open. Or nothing and nobody and too much imagination in the wrong place.''

* RevolversAreJustBetter: Subverted with Marlowe's trusty .38, which he only sometimes carries, rarely fires, and frequently has taken away from him, one way or another.
* ShapedLikeItself: From ''The Little Sister'':
-->''She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me.''

* AluminumChristmasTrees: As discussed in [[http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2014/12/27/best-of-raymond-chandler-baseball this article]], ''The High Window'' contains a puzzling-to-modern-readers reference to synthetic crowd noise at a Dodgers game broadcast on the radio, particularly given that the novel is set in California and was written well before the Dodgers left Brooklyn. As the article explains, between the 1920s and the 1950s there was an industry in re-creating baseball games for same-day delay broadcasts, and sportscasters would mimic details such as crowd sounds and the noise of the bat in order to provide listeners with a realistic experience.

* MacGuffin: ''The High Window'' has Marlowe tracking down the Brasher Doubloon, a legendary coin worth a fortune that leaves a trail of dead thieves behind it; come the ending, it turns out [[spoiler:a minor character sold it for a new start with a clean slate]], but it's unimportant considering Marlowe uncovers a framing and a few murders in the process.

** Detective Lieutenant Ybarra in the radio series ''The Adventures of Philip Marlowe'' is a straightforward example. The character first appeared in the Chandler short story ''Red Wind'', starring John Dalmas--which was later reprinted as a Philip Marlowe short. Oddly enough, the radio episode adapting ''Red Wind'' [[AdaptedOut removed Ybarra's role]], despite him being a recurring character in the radio sereis.

** Detective Lieutenant Ybarra in the radio series ''The Adventures of Philip Marlowe'' is a straightforward example. The character first appeared in the Chandler short story ``Red Wind``, starring John Dalmas--which was later reprinted as a Philip Marlowe short. Oddly enough, the radio episode adapting ''Red Wind'' [[AdaptedOut removed Ybarra's role]], despite him being a recurring character in the radio sereis.

** The recurring character Detective Lietenant Ybarra in the radio series ''The Adventures of Philip Marlowe'' is a straightforward example.

[[index]]

[[/index]]

* 1944: ''Film/MurderMySweet''. Based on the novel ''Farewell, My Lovely''. Marlowe is played by Creator/DickPowell.
* 1946: ''Film/TheBigSleep''. This is perhaps the most famous film adaption. Marlowe is played by Creator/HumphreyBogart.
* 1947: ''Film/LadyInTheLake''. Adaptation of the novel, Robert Montgomery as Marlowe. Famous for using a POVCam for almost the entire film.
* 1969: ''Film/{{Marlowe}}''. Starring James Garner in an adaptation of novel ''The Little Sister''. Not a PeriodPiece, but takes place at the time it was made.
* 1973: ''Film/TheLongGoodbye''. Marlowe is played by Elliott Gould. Like ''Marlowe'', takes place at the time it was made.
* 1975: ''Film/FarewellMyLovely''. Marlowe is played by Robert Mitchum. Mitchum would later reprise the role for a 1978 version of ''The Big Sleep'' (which also takes place at the time it was made), making him the only actor ever to play Marlowe in two different movies.

[[quoteright:288:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/philipmarlowe.jpg]]

Marlowe has appeared in no less than 10 film adaptions, even more television and radio programs, and at least one video game.

* ShapedLikeItself: From ''The Lady in the Lake'':
-->''She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled a fawn and it jerked away from me.''