The Brasher Doubloon: No Small Change

Marlowe offers to help Merle with her "man" problems.

Long considered the redheaded stepchild of all the films to feature Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, The Brasher Doubloon (1947, 20th Century Fox) is usually dismissed as inconsequential. Usually from people who haven't seen it.

Not that you can blame most folks for jumping to that conclusion -- the movie's been notoriously hard to find, never officially released on VHS, as far as I know, and rarely shows up on television. Nor is the Chandler novel it's based on -- 1942's The High Window -- generally considered one of his best.

Most reviews, meanwhile, go back to when it was first released, and following as it did Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep and Edward Dymytryk's Murder, My Sweet, two certifiable classics, it was definitely found wanting. It didn't help that what few stills and publicity shots existed have seemed less than encouraging. Most feature George Montgomery (who?) as Marlowe, sporting a cheesy moustache and a shit-eating smirk -- or a look of bland consternation. In fact, if you're looking for big stars or name directors or acting fireworks, this isn't the film you're looking for. So it's safe to say there wasn't a huge demand -- except perhaps among Chandler obsessives -- for this obscure B-film to be released on DVD.

What home video versions have been released over the years have been of dubious legality and technical quality, if you could find them at all.

And yet, there it was under the tree yesterday, The Brasher Doubloon, all wrapped up with a nice bow on it. A complete surprise, I wasn't even aware it had finally been released as an officially sanctioned DVD -- a mere 65 years after its theatrical theatrical debut. Even better though, is that the film, while slight, is a pleasant surprise.

No, really. It's not bad at all. I'm fortunate, I guess, that Mrs. Thrilling (aka "Santa") is as big a Chandler geek as me. We sat down to watch it tonight, a Boxing Day treat.

And yes, Montgomery does have that annoying caterpillar on his upper lip, and his Marlowe is way too upbeat and perky (although he handles the action scenes well enough, and the disdain with which he tosses a downed goon's now empty gun at him is priceless). Nor will the thespian skills of Nancy Guild, as Merle Davis, the sexually repressed secretary to a bullying, Jabba the Hutt-like dowager, have anyone but the morbidly curious scrambling to find her other films.

But that Bambi-in-the-headlights look is just what the role calls for and Guild nails it. Adam over at OCD Viewer describes her as "a little like a softer-featured Margot Kidder," and he may have something there. Guild has a slightly unhinged vulnerability here that, combined with a watery sensuality, makes her a whole new -- and possibly even more dangerous -- type of femme fatale. No wonder Marlowe generously offers to help her overcome her intimacy issues.

But hey, this is a B-film, after all, and any limitations of dramatic range among the leads (or psychological plausibility in the script)  are more than covered by some truly great character bits and some shrewd casting. Among the best: Mrs. Murdock, the wealthy, overbearing, eccentric harpy of client, possibly airlifted from a Charles Dickens novel, and her foppish weasel of a son Lesley (portrayed by a very young, pre-Mork and Mindy Conrad Janis). Toss in a crew of tough-as-spit bulldog LA cops in need of distemper shots and a parade of grotesque thugs and you've got a show. My faves included the long tall drink of polluted water in the straw boater who confronts Marlowe early on and the twitchy blackmailer who can't quite bring himself to look Marlowe in the eye and instead rubs his finger back and forth on the desk. It makes for one of the best rogue's galleries of geeks and freaks this side of Huston's The Maltese Falcon.

And this is all in service of a clean, relatively straightforward screenplay by Dorothy Bennett (who?) that leans heavily on Chandler's penchant for wisecracks. She took some liberties, naturally, and some of it seems "borrowed" from other, better films, but it follows a more-or-less logical progression, and some strong, sure-handed direction by John Brahm (who?) brings it on home.

And, oh, those camera shots! Some of the location shots of 40s Los Angeles and environs -- from the opulently decadent Murdock mansion in Pasadena to the seedy apartment buildings of an already decaying Bunker's Hill -- are eye-popping. This is not some sterile, carefully reconstructed period piece with all the warmth of a LEGO brick -- this is the real deal.

Were this a better known film, some of those images would be almost downright iconic.

As it is, although the film is not in itself particularly noir (it's alternately too glib and too cheesy, and the too-cute-by-half ending would be more at home in a screwball romantic comedy), the oddball camera angles, stark lighting and freak show characterizations (not to mention some true ugliness that comes slithering out when the true villain is revealed) suggest what might have been.

Don't get me wrong. We're not talking any lost classic here -- it's just a good, solid B-flick -- but The Brasher Doubloon is far better and far more entertaining than I -- or possibly even you -- ever thought it would be. 

Take a chance.  You've got a movie here.

Dear Mr. Chandler...

As John Prine once noted, it's a big ol' goofy world out there. And some people don't read very well. Or are just plain hard of thinking.

Anyone doubting that has only to run a web site for a while, or, I guess, simply attempt to offer an opinion or two in public, before that becomes glaringly obvious. People misread, misspeak and misinterpret stuff with such ferocity and come up with such peculiar notions that you wonder if they had to go to Stupid School to get that way, or were just naturally blessed.

Like, on a mailing list recently, I dared poke a little fun at a famous author's PR schtick and his increasing longwindedness, only to be told by an apparent adult on the list that I had no right to voice such an opinion about anyone "who's accomplished so much more than you have" and "are a lot better than you are."

The implication, of course, being that one should keep their mouths shut about one's betters.

Naturally, this genius' own literary accomplishments seem to consist chiefly of a self-published book only available on his MySpace page, but that's beside the point. You still you have to wonder about any "writer" -- published or not -- who thinks so little of the concept of free speech.

And then there's my site. I get letters all the time from people who think I'm a detective agency or a book seller or a DVD vendor or even the fictitious character I'm writing about. And plenty of folks with more technology than imagination who've had nothing better to do than Google their own names, only to discover some private detective who shares their monicker. Most of them assume I'm the author, of course, and are simply curious as to why "I" chose that particular name.

Which is harmless enough, I guess. I answer them, clarify who I am and what I do, pat their butts and send 'em on their way.

But then there are the gumdrops who take it up a big notch, like the latest wingnut who thinks she has a legal case because a relatively well-respected mystery author had a series built around a character who shared her long deceased relative's name.

Not that there is much to link the two beyond a shared bit of nomenclature and a few rough biographical similarities, but this woman's anger seems to have two fronts: she's angry because the name is the same, and she's angry because the details of the detective's life are not the same. In a work of fiction!

But mostly she seems to resent the praise and acclaim the author has garnered over the last ten years or so, over what she sees as the dead body of her relative. Did I mention the woman considers herself a "truly creative person"?

I made the mistake of trying to reason with this fruitcake, and now I've got members of her extended clan also on my case, also threatening me with legal action. And now the woman's boasting she has plans to confront the author.

Suffice it to say that I managed to track him down and warn him, just in case. After all, being a looney toon doesn't necessarily disqualify anyone from being able to purchase a gun in this country. I'd rather risk ridicule for over-reacting than read about some poor mystery author being Cheyneyed in the face.

And this isn't the first time it's happened. I've had correspondence with a few other litigation-happy crackpots over the years, perhaps most notably a few years ago when a woman informed me she was going to sue a British author for ripping off her life for a male character-- and also having the audacity to change almost every bit of her life for his fictional character. She demanded I post "the whole story" on my web site so the world would finally know "the truth."

I tell you, it makes me long for the days when most of my e-mail from the site was more along the lines of:

Dear Mr. Chandler,

I love your books about Phillip Malrowe. Why don't you write more?

Sigh...