Infiltration Week Minisode: A History of the Classic Noir Characters Sam Spade & Philip Marlowe

[00:00:06] It's a Jacked Up Review Show!

[00:00:46] Greetings all, greetings all.

[00:00:48] Taking a trip down Noir City.

[00:00:52] Talking about the 1920s created Private Eye Philip Marlowe, as well as the 1930s creation

[00:01:00] Sam Spade.

[00:01:04] Both these characters because Humphrey Bogard portrayed them respectively in The Big Sleep

[00:01:11] as well as the Maltese Falcon.

[00:01:14] The reason, I mean these characters are referenced everywhere from Primetime TV to

[00:01:20] Even both getting a mention in the Liam Neeson serial killer mystery, A Walk Among the Tombstones

[00:01:26] which itself is based off of very darkly witted yet very gritty crime novel.

[00:01:35] And I'm just going to go through just casually just talking about how these characters

[00:01:41] have their different portrayals, their different interpretations, why they really stand out

[00:01:49] as well as they do.

[00:01:51] And, you know, let's go through it.

[00:01:58] So Philip Marlowe, he's probably one of the better known Private Eye characters that

[00:02:06] is referenced by all kinds of pulp novelists and all kinds of other movies and TV shows.

[00:02:13] And he's been adapted into even several different radio plays too.

[00:02:19] But, you know, aside from The Big Sleep he appeared in Fairlo, My Lovely as well as

[00:02:23] The Long Goodbye.

[00:02:24] We'll get to some of those adaptations.

[00:02:28] You know, he's in his 30s and he's trying to find out who killed his partner as well

[00:02:34] as trying to find a love life on the side.

[00:02:37] So I think that's just the overall essence.

[00:02:39] When you see people referenced in any kind of neo-noir they want that guy who's

[00:02:45] not a sleaze but just he's a ladies man and while he's investigating very dangerous

[00:02:52] people a medium heavy build occupying different hotels and then renting a house in Laurel

[00:03:01] Canyon.

[00:03:02] Yeah, no, he's it's pretty much guaranteed that if you see a neo-new age noir character

[00:03:12] They took a hand from either him or Sam Spade.

[00:03:17] And he's appeared in the various other short stories that have included him include Try

[00:03:23] the Girl, Mandarin's Jade, Red Wind, The King in Yellow and Pearl's Our Nuisance

[00:03:30] and The Bronze Door.

[00:03:36] Yeah, no, he was created by author Raymond Chandler who was born in 1888 and passed

[00:03:46] away at 1959 at the age of 70.

[00:03:51] And The Big Sleep was placed on the Crime Writer's Association poll the 100 best

[00:03:56] crime novels.

[00:03:57] So many people like him including just other various authors and including Robert B. Parker

[00:04:13] who is best known as creating the detective character Spencer for hire which also became

[00:04:20] a bunch of TV movies and TV shows.

[00:04:23] So I do love this whole kind of deal of authors inspiring other people's careers and doing

[00:04:29] two sides of the same coin.

[00:04:33] But but Marlowe no Chandler once said that wandering up and down the Pacific Coast

[00:04:48] in automobile he began to read pulp magazines because they were cheap enough to throw

[00:04:52] away and because he never had at any time any taste for the kind of thing which

[00:04:56] is known as women's magazines.

[00:04:59] So he made use of the Black Mask magazine which hosted a lot of both the Marlowe and

[00:05:06] Sam Spade character.

[00:05:07] He thought it was a good way to write fiction get paid a small amount of money at the

[00:05:11] same time and of course you know talk about investment.

[00:05:17] But yeah no Marlowe is just a total badass he's always pretty much having to have

[00:05:25] the final say after just going into just different problematic areas of you know cities

[00:05:37] various slums various fancy elite stuff.

[00:05:40] You know evil always finds a way to encounter him and he always has to find a way out

[00:05:43] of it.

[00:05:45] But yeah some of the other books that have yet to be adapted are The Little Sister and

[00:06:00] The Lady and the like but actually I'd take that back.

[00:06:07] I think it's the high window that didn't get an adaption.

[00:06:11] Yeah no there's been Robert B.

[00:06:16] Parker apparently took over the character and I did see an adaptation of this book

[00:06:21] he did called Poodle Springs but that became an HBO movie with James Caan in the role.

[00:06:30] The character much like Sam Spade has been popular in radio.

[00:06:35] CBS radio had a syndicated show called Adventures of Philip Marlowe from 48 to 51.

[00:06:42] And of course the BBC did one in 2011 with Toby Stevens.

[00:06:47] I've never been a fan of Toby Stevens since he was a terrible James Bond villain and

[00:06:51] he's been in some better stuff like Black Sails the TV show but who knows maybe it's

[00:06:59] okay I'm not going to listen to it anytime soon.

[00:07:04] Michael Madsen has apparently played this character that's what I find just even more

[00:07:09] I will definitely check that out because Madsen has made a living playing noirish characters.

[00:07:16] So Elliot Gould played him in The Long Goodbye obviously Bogart was the best known one.

[00:07:23] Ben Heflin played him on the radio Robert Montgomery played him on both film and the

[00:07:29] radio George Montgomery as well Philip Carey played him on TV James Gardner even played

[00:07:36] him in a film and I've definitely seen the Robert Mitchum movies which were by the

[00:07:42] Death Wish directors so that they were good for what they were.

[00:07:47] Howard's Booth I know had a short-lived HBO TV show and Danny Glover played the

[00:07:51] character on a Stephen Soderbergh produced show for Showtime called City of Angels

[00:07:56] which was again a bunch much like Tales from the Crip just standalone Tales of

[00:08:02] the Week connected by one theme and it had its share of just it was their excuse to do

[00:08:08] just noir stuff.

[00:08:11] Wikipedia noted some other stuff on just movies that have referenced it I'm not going

[00:08:17] to go for all of them but the HBO comedy show Bored to Death apparently references a

[00:08:23] lot of that material through either character names or titles of the episodes.

[00:08:30] This very confusing BBC serial drama which later became a Robert Downey Jr.

[00:08:38] movie is called The Singing Detective apparently is a very meta movie where an actor

[00:08:45] is playing a Marlowe's character but obviously people are also noticing how Captain

[00:08:55] Picard on the Star Trek show The Next Generation would have a holodeck simulation and it was a

[00:09:02] regurgitation of those well-known noir type characters and he called his character

[00:09:08] Dixon Hill.

[00:09:11] There's also a few other just foreign movies and even a Czechoslovakian comedy film

[00:09:20] premiered this.

[00:09:22] Clips of Bogard's character from The Big Slave were used in the Steve Martin parody

[00:09:27] movie Dead Man Don't Wear Played I'm due for a rewatch of that but I recall it being

[00:09:30] really well done and yeah Marlowe is the man there's even apparently was a video

[00:09:39] game in 96 so I mean this is a character that will not die here something very just

[00:09:47] relishing about how he just kind of approaches people he gets information he's not a wise ass

[00:09:54] he's a gentleman I still need to see the new Liam Neeson movie yeah that's right coincidentally

[00:09:59] Liam Neeson did do a recent movie I've been due to watch.

[00:10:04] I will definitely check out some of the newer novels I want to say that yeah there's even

[00:10:16] some comic books that adapt some of the novels that were in 2003 so I'm going to definitely

[00:10:22] check those out someday. So let's go on to Sam Spade. Sam Spade is again you know known

[00:10:31] for the Maltese Falcon finding you know belongings and other trouble wherever he goes

[00:10:38] and I like how he's kind of better with the word play and

[00:10:47] you can kind of see a bit of him in something like The Rockford Files or even

[00:10:51] a comedy show like Psych I think he is definitely the more you know Marlowe does a lot of drinking

[00:11:00] smoking while and womanizing while Spade is kind of more just

[00:11:11] you know he's a blonde and even though he can be a little mischievous he's not

[00:11:20] dumb or getting himself into trouble but he's a classier kind of guy I would describe him as

[00:11:25] and so Maltese Falcon was written in 1930 and he was serialized in various issues of Black Mask

[00:11:36] Spade and Archer was a book that followed and the radio adventures of Sam Spade were also

[00:11:42] put together but those were numerous years later talking to the 2000s there's been

[00:11:47] various other short stories by other approved authors the author of Sam Spade character is

[00:11:56] Ashule Hamill and he was born in 1894 and died in 1961 at the age of 66 and he was also

[00:12:06] regard a highly regarded mystery novel guy but they definitely call him a hardboiled detective

[00:12:11] fiction guy so Sam Spade is actually a Christian if you can believe it so yeah he's

[00:12:20] you know pretty laid back he's always the bigger man and I can't I don't even know

[00:12:31] who I would describe as the better performance with Bogart I mean I kind of consider The Big

[00:12:39] Sleep the better movie as the Marlowe character but I do kind of like his portrayal Sam Spade way

[00:12:44] better in The Maltese Falcon he's just way better framed there so Spade in general fiction is

[00:12:55] you know he has a deceased wife he has a son of the same name and he's

[00:13:05] you know much like Marlowe he's investigating a mixture of just corrupt individuals

[00:13:14] other problematic and scummy guys but he's also just again he kind of just surveys the area more

[00:13:22] and kind of more of a Sherlock Holmes kind of guy and

[00:13:29] and but

[00:13:35] apparently

[00:13:38] author Hamid had done a similar thing called a continental op and he was a

[00:13:46] PI guy at a San Francisco office and it was his attempt as he said to get from less than

[00:13:56] glamorous life kind of trails and just have just more just find a mystery and solve it and

[00:14:06] yeah I understand that you definitely The Big Sleep has all kinds of you know scum bags and

[00:14:13] sleaze and not so much here

[00:14:16] and apparently so this character has been played also

[00:14:26] by Warren Williams and Sadam Meadowlady an earlier version of The Maltese Falcon from 1931

[00:14:33] starring Ricardo Cortez who was a actor and director once known as Jack Crane

[00:14:40] and a Columbia parody movie in 75 called The Blackbird and the strange case of the

[00:14:51] Indisemblalization as we know it by Mike O'Malley which was a Sherlock Holmes spoof

[00:14:58] movie starring John Cleese I have not heard of this but it sounds great

[00:15:02] um and much like Marlowe he's been in numerous radio dramas by the Screen Guild Theater,

[00:15:10] the Luxe Radio Theater and a few unaired CBS TV pilots from the 50s and NBC,

[00:15:21] O'Farrell, Charlie Wilde, Private Detective which was also a radio program and my bad so Michael

[00:15:31] Madsen did not play Marlowe he played he played Sam Spade so yeah this was a Grammy nominated

[00:15:39] audio play I also starred Sandra Oh and Edward Herman it was produced by the Hollywood Theater

[00:15:47] at least on Blackstone Audio there's apparently going to be an upcoming AMC produced show

[00:15:54] called Mongeau Spade in 2024 this year you know starring Clive Owens so I'm looking forward

[00:16:01] to that so yeah Marlowe had his share of numerous other audio dramas and movie and TV

[00:16:10] adaptations but Spade he literally has it in spades he's been featured in Detective Conan

[00:16:16] manga he was featured in air tonic ads in the 50s and there was a comic book adaptation

[00:16:27] of the Maltese Falcon in the 40s so yeah now he's always being readapted as well

[00:16:35] not as much but he seems to be a way more popular character just because he's easier to

[00:16:40] adapt and again classier and less problematic characters that he has to face off with

[00:16:48] and he's also been portrayed by Stephen Dunn and Tom Wilkinson so that's awesome um

[00:16:57] yeah I know I find it just interesting how

[00:17:02] uh just this character just

[00:17:08] is just kind of just he's just I know I'm kind of running loose on the descriptions here but he

[00:17:15] just he's kind of just he speaks for himself and when he has to and he's produced a DC comics

[00:17:28] character called Tim Trench who appeared first appeared in a Wonder Woman comic who was inspired

[00:17:34] by Spade and there's even the Maltese Falcon Society which an award that goes to honoring

[00:17:50] people who come up with noir characters so I love how people are giving out awards that are

[00:17:58] based on this character you know so yeah no this this is awesome I think these characters

[00:18:05] are going to just continue to just find a purpose and continually be readapted just

[00:18:12] because they're just larger than life they're kind of every guy's fantasy they're charming

[00:18:18] for the ladies they're the perfect example of how to come up with characters that are

[00:18:31] bigger than the sum of their parts and yet have a bit of humanity in them

[00:18:35] and I can applaud that to anybody because this is not easy to come up with um but yeah

[00:18:44] I will try to do more thorough reviews on the actual material that especially those

[00:18:48] audio dramas in the future but for now I just thought I'd do kind of a brief mini review on

[00:18:55] the history of these characters and their adaptations but thank you for listening

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