REVIEW: Lady in the Lake

One cannot start speaking about Lady in the Lake without addressing the POV in the room.

You know I’ve got to give it to Robert Montgomery for trying something new. I always will champion those who try to reinvent the wheels of cinema by bringing some form of novelty, whether it works or not. And the whole idea of shooting the whole film pretty much from literally Marlowe’s perspective, where he barely appears on screen, was quite interesting. Plus, if you have read the books, you know the whole thing is told from first and no third person. So this is not a crazy idea.

Unfortunately, the whole thing comes off as awkward in large part thanks to everyone else’s performance. Perhaps because it was such a new thing, other actors didn’t know how to behave or Montgomery didn’t know how to direct them. Everyone speaks to the camera, constantly breaking the wall, but again, they do so in an awkward way that feels kind of uneasy. I don’t know.

On top of that, the film itself is not good. The novel is based on my least favorite of the bunch, and this didn’t help me to like it any more. Got to give it to the film; it’s less convoluted than the book but still nowhere near as engaging. Robert also stars as Marlowe and he acts the least Marlowe of all the ones who have embodied the character until this point. No wit, no quips, no banter—his performance is quite dry and his Marlowe is pretty generic. I don’t blame him entirely, as in the book, the writing missed a lot of the spark that made me love the character in the first place.

All in all, I again have to applaud the stakes and the ideas and I’m kind of sad this in a way apparently ended Montgomery’s career (at least with MGM), but none of this just worked. Most of it was dull. No intrigue. No real suspense. No humor. It basically failed to deliver on all that makes Chandler’s books such a fun read.