Product Details

• Actors: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan
• Directors: Robert Montgomery
• Format: NTSC, Black & White
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Brothers
• Run Time: 103.0 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000H0JD88
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,913 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars YOU Share The Viewpoint of the Crankiest Marlowe in Cinema!, September 29, 2006

By 

Dorian Tenore-Bartilucci (Whitehall, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lady in the Lake (DVD)

Drawing on his life of crimefighting to write a short story, Raymond Chandler's tough but noble P.I. Philip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery, pulling double duty as actor and director) submits his work to Kingsby Publications, home of such pulp fiction mags as LURID DETECTIVE and MURDER MASTERPIECES. Before he can say "byline," editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) has Marlowe up to his neck in murder, missing dames, and crooked cops -- and you can see things Marlowe's way, literally! Before all those slasher movies came along during the last couple of decades, LADY IN THE LAKE used the subjective camera treatment -- hell, the camera was practically a character in the flick! Throughout most of LADY..., we see everything exactly as Marlowe sees it; the only times we see Marlowe/Montgomery's face is when he looks in a mirror, as well as in a brief prologue, an entrè-acte segment, and an epilogue. In the trailer (featured on the spiffy new DVD version of LADY..., along with an enjoyable and informative commentary track by film historians Alain Silver and James Ursini), MGM's publicity department did its best to push the film as the first interactive movie experience: "MGM presents a Revolutionary motion picture; the most amazing since Talkies began! YOU and ROBERT MONTGOMERY solve a murder mystery together! YOU accept an invitation to a blonde's apartment! YOU get socked in the jaw by a murder suspect!" YOU occasionally start snickering in spite of yourself when the subjective camera gimmick teeters dangerously close to parodying itself, like when Totter moves in for a smooch with Our Hero The Camera. Some of Totter's facial expressions in the first half of the film as she spars verbally with Montgomery are pretty funny, too, though I'm not sure all of them were meant to be (she uses the arched eyebrow technique done so much more effectively later by CQ's Angela Lindvall, Eunice Gayson of DR. NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, Leonard Nimoy, The Rock, et al... :-). Having said that, the subjective camera technique works more often than not; in particular, I thought the fight scenes and a harrowing sequence where an injured Marlowe crawls out of his wrecked car worked beautifully. It helps that Steve Fisher provided a good solid screenplay for Raymond Chandler's novel, though Chandler purists were annoyed that the novel's pivotal Little Fawn Lake sequence was relegated to a speech in the recap scene in the middle (apparently they tried to film that scene on location, but the subjective camera treatment proved harder to do in the great outdoors, so they gave up). The performances are quite good overall, including Lloyd Nolan as a dirty cop and an intense dramatic turn by young Jayne Meadows. Montgomery's sardonic snap mostly works well for cynical Marlowe, though he sometimes forgets to tone it down during tender dialogue, making him sound simply cranky. Totter eventually tones down her mugging and becomes genuinely affecting as her Adrienne lets down her guard and begins falling for Marlowe. You may love or hate this LADY..., but if you enjoy mysteries and you're intrigued by offbeat movie-making techniques, give her a try!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Laughfest, January 12, 2001

By 

Thomas Pillen (Temple City,CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lady in the Lake [VHS] (VHS Tape)

What a movie!GreatB/W movie that is completely shot out of the eyes of the main character Phillip Marlowe. It's about a P.I who is hired to find a missing person. The one-liners and facial expressions are hilarious. I was rolling on the floor. A must see!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Lesson in the Pitfalls of Subjective Camera. An Unfortunately Dull Detective Story., August 4, 2006

By 

mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lady in the Lake (DVD)

"Lady in the Lake" is something of an experiment in subjective camera by actor/director Robert Montgomery. Somehow I doubt that's what MGM had in mind for a crime film based on Raymond Chandler's novel of the same name, Chandler being one of the most popular crime writers in America at the time. We rarely see the leading man's face. We never know much about him. The camera work is constrained by always seeing from one viewpoint. All because the camera has taken a subjective point of view, that of private detective Philip Marlowe. While this technique did present its own set of interesting challenges, not the least of which were extremely long takes and actors always playing to the camera, the subjective camera ends up being an impediment in engaging the audience visually or emotionally. It effectively takes Philip Marlowe out of the picture, leaving him a disembodied voice whose character we never know or care much about. Raymond Chandler's material should have made good film noir, but "Lady in the Lake" lacks captivating lead roles and anything interesting to look at.

Private detective Philip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) has turned from the mean streets to the typewriter. He has submitted a detective story to Kingsby Publications, publishers of "lurid detective stories" among other pulp fiction. At the publisher's offices, a sharp, smarmy editor named Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) offers him $200 for his story...or $500 for the story and his services in locating the wife of Adrienne's boss and lover Derace Kingsby (Leon Ames). Marlowe takes the case, but doesn't think much of Adrienne: "I have an allergy against getting mixed up with tricky females who want to knock off the boss's wife and marry him for herself." At the Kingsby's lake house in the mountains, the caretaker's wife is found drowned. Mrs. Kingsby's lover Chris Lavery (Richard Simmons) isn't doing any better. And a police Lt. DeGarmot (Lloyd Nolan) has taken a particular dislike to Marlowe's snooping around. -All of which leads everyone to wonder if Mrs. Kingsby is to blame for the trouble or some victim of it.

We catch the occasional glimpse of Philip Marlowe in a mirror, and he addresses the camera directly, awkwardly, several times -to introduce the case and keep us informed of his progress. But Robert Montgomery is too excited and earnest in those scenes. And when he tries a more deadpan delivery in his voice-over narration, Montgomery just sounds grouchy and affected. The wonderful hard-boiled dialogue in "Lady in the Lake" is wasted on poor delivery. Since we can't usually see Marlowe, focus is shifted to Adrienne. Having to constantly act to the camera, with Montgomery saying his lines while squatting on a platform under the camera, didn't display Audrey Totter's talent to its best advantage. Adrienne is very unnatural. Two underperforming leads sap a lot of interest out of this film, but there are some strong supporting performances. Lloyd Nolan, who may have been known best in the 1940s for playing good, wise law enforcement officers, plays a corrupt cop here. He reputedly had trouble acting to the camera, but he's terrific. The other notable performance is by Jayne Meadows as fast-talking, disturbed Mildred Haveland.

"Lady in the Lake"'s best scene by far is its last (before the epilogue scene), because it brings together the film's strong elements: Nolan, Meadows, and a slew of hard-boiled lines, delivered perfectly by Nolan: "How does it feel dying in the dirty middle of somebody else's love affair?" I sure wish I'd had some inkling of how it felt before the last scene. "Dark Passage", released later the same year (1947), is another film famous for its use of subjective camera. It also managed to show off its leads -Bogie and Bacall- rather poorly while presenting an impressive supporting cast. "Lady in the Lake" is a slightly better film than "Dark Passage", because its source material is better. But it should have been good. Instead, it's tedious.

The DVD (Warner Brothers 2006): This print is speckly in places, but not to the extent that it is distracting. Sound is good. Bonus features are a theatrical trailer and an audio commentary by film noir scholars Alain Silver and James Ursini. I think they are too enamored of the subjective camera technique, which does nothing good for this particular film, but Silver and Ursini do a nice job of exploring the implications and challenges of subjective camera. They also discuss Raymond Chandler, this interpretation of the Marlowe character, the long takes, Adrienne's expanded role, the actors, MGM's high key glamour look in the film. The commentary focuses more on technique than other Silver/Ursini commentaries that I've heard, with a lot of scene-by-scene analysis, probably because technique is this film's claim to fame.