1947 · noir · detective · first-person
Lady in the Lake
Directed by Robert Montgomery1h 45m1947
Private eye Phillip Marlowe wants to get out of the detective racket and into crime writing. But when he's called to the office of editor Adrienne Fromsett, it's not to talk about his story ideas — she wants him to locate the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby. The assignment quickly becomes complicated when bodies start turning up.
Our read: Lady in the Lake (1947) reads as a sombre, kinetic, inventive noir · detective · first-person entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.
Sombre, kinetic, measured noir / detective, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, cold.
- sombre
- brisk
- inventive
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Availability in the US · via JustWatch
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How Lady in the Lake feels to watch.
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“You want classic Marlowe noir shot entirely from the detective's subjective POV.”
Skip it tonight — You find first-person noir gimmicky or want Chandler played straight and modern.
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