Elliott Gould plays Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe, a private eye investigating the apparent murder of his friend while simultaneously taking a case involving a missing husband, only for the two cases to collide in ways that suggest everyone around him knows considerably more than they are letting on. The film revels in its own convolution, demanding maximum attention and rewarding it generously, crafting a mystery within a mystery that brings out everything that makes Marlowe one of fiction’s greatest detectives. It is a slower-paced film that never had the benefit of a rising action star to carry it into the cultural conversation, and has slipped into relative obscurity for every generation since.
