Product Details

• Actors: Powers Boothe, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Billy Kearns, Ken Pogue, Frank Pellegrino
• Directors: Peter R. Hunt
• Producers: Chris Kenny, John Scarborough
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Goldhill Home Media
• DVD Release Date: February 24, 2004
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00013F2KO
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #62,215 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Philip Marlowe, Private Eye Collection" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

For this set, you'd better peel off your trench coat, pour yourself a stiff drink, and get ready for a slick look at the dirty secrets of Deco Era Hollywood with the private dick who knows them all. HBO's Philip Marlowe, Private Eye takes Raymond Chandler's grittiest short stories and transforms them into stylish, atmospheric production pieces. In these six hour-long tales, you're taken on a tough tour through the decaying glamour of Los Angeles, from the mansions and movie studios to the jazz joints and one-night cheap hotels. Every character has a story to tell, and every one of them has a secret to keep. Powers Boothe does a wonderful job bringing the hardest of hard-boiled detectives to life in these colorful cases of corruption and revenge. In early episodes, the supporting players are occasionally overwhelmed by Boothe's talent, but overall, the acting is tight--and Chandler's dialogue is still razor sharp decades after it was written. The stories will keep you guessing until the end...which is exactly what you'd expect from a master of mystery. But the real triumph of the series is in bringing the grim noir morality tales to life, painstakingly re-creating the sweaty streets and penthouse suites of a great city gone to seed. When all the elements come together, you can almost taste the cigarettes, feel the sweat, and smell the aroma of cordite and dime-store perfume. --Grant Balfour

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marlowe lives, September 29, 2004

By	Carl Tait (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Powers Boothe is perhaps the best Marlowe ever, and that's saying a lot. He's smart, world-weary, and sardonic, tossing off Chandler's scintillating lines with aplomb. Talking about an upwardly mobile lowlife, Marlowe remarks, "The guy had a mansion in Bel Air and all the old-world charm of a cop beating up a drunk."

This DVD set includes all 11 episodes of the HBO series: the five from 1983 and the six from 1986. The 1986 episodes have cheesy opening titles and closing credits, but possess a much stronger noir sensibility than the earlier eps (fine as those are). Classic noir chiaroscuro is much in evidence in the later installments, while the first five eps are slightly marred by conventional studio lighting. Throughout the series, attention to detail is excellent. The darker shades of 1938 Los Angeles are vividly brought to life.

One oddity: the sound is weirdly unbalanced in a few episodes. However, two versions of the soundtrack are provided (Dolby 5.1 and 2.0), and at least one of the two is always fine.

Enthusiastically recommended in any case.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marlowe lives, March 1, 2004

By	Carl Tait (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Powers Boothe is perhaps the best Marlowe ever, and that's saying a lot. He's smart, world-weary, and sardonic, tossing off Chandler's scintillating lines with aplomb. Talking about an upwardly mobile lowlife, Marlowe remarks, "The guy had a mansion in Bel Air and all the old-world charm of a cop beating up a drunk."

This DVD set includes all 11 episodes of the HBO series: the five from 1983 and the six from 1986. The 1986 episodes have cheesy opening titles and closing credits, but possess a much stronger noir sensibility than the earlier eps (fine as those are). Classic noir chiaroscuro is much in evidence in the later installments, while the first five eps are slightly marred by conventional studio lighting. Throughout the series, attention to detail is excellent. The darker shades of 1938 Los Angeles are vividly brought to life.

Note that this item is *not* "Vol 3" as listed; it's a "3 Vol Set" containing three DVDs. Also, the sound is weirdly unbalanced in a few episodes, but since two versions of the soundtrack are provided (Dolby 5.1 and 2.0), one or the other is usually fine.

Enthusiastically recommended in any case.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Marlowe EVER, December 20, 2005

By	Truthseeker (Aurora, CO USA) - See all my reviews

I was watching my old tapes of this series last night. I taped it off HBO, and loved it. The tapes are worn and stretched, so I thought I'd check to see if the series was available on DVD. God bless Goldhl!!

Powers Boothe is, without a doubt, the best Marlowe ever. Bogart was good, but he's more of a Sam Spade than a Philip Marlowe. Powers Boothe managed to take an icon, and not exactly breathe new life into it, but breathe Chandler's vision of Marlowe into it. I had a difficult time at first with Kathryn Leigh Scott, since I kept seeing her as Maggie Evans in Dark Shadows. But once I got past that, she was actually quite good. The sets and costumes are certainly authentic, the cars are fabulous, and the music, with it's wonderful jazz bass line, sets the tone magnificently.

I just wish they had the funds to do all of Chandler's short stories.

Very very very highly recommended. I only gave this five stars because Amazon doesn't give the option to give six.