guerre1859 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.

SylvesterFox007 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.

halben-1 I just recently purchased the DVD edition of these shows, and they are really interesting. The audio quality on the DVD is horrible for the early episodes (1983), but those have the nicer opening credits and generally very good storytelling.So far I've only seen one of the later episodes, "Pick-up on Noon Street", but it was pretty nice. The audio quality is immensely better than on the earlier episodes, but the acting was a little more hammy over all. Robin Givens was good, and Boothe was great as usual. The actions sequences were pretty poorly filmed, though, in my opinion.Overall, HBO had their hands on something special here. Power Boothe is (as others have said here) the best Marlowe ever on screen. I love Bogey, and Mitchum is great in Farewell My Lovely, but Boothe feels like he IS the Marlowe, and his delivery of the dialog and voice-overs is superb.I really wish that HBO or someone else would do another remake of The Long Goodbye with Powers Boothe as an older Marlowe. That'd be the best of Chandler played by the best Marlowe.

Alexander Ghali This was a great show. I know there have been lots of versions of "Phillip Marlowe" on film and television, from Humphrey Bogart to Robert Mitchum and perhaps beyond, but this is was my first exposure to this character, and I remember it fondly.I was just thinking about how I miss cop/P.I. films and TV shows of the Film Noir/"fedoras and raincoats" genre, and this old HBO program- even if only for 11 episodes- suddenly became a vivid memory that came to mind. This was also my first introduction to this whole genre, which I got to explore further and in greater depth in films of the WWII and postwar period- and later works that have paid tribute to this genre and all the actors, directors, and characters such as "Phillip Marlowe" that were a part of it.This was a great character, and I really enjoyed this show- and hope to see "Phillip Marlowe" make an appearance in the future on the big or small screen...