Themes: Star Detectives, Private Eyes, Femmes Fatales
Main Cast: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully, Leon Ames
Release Year: 1946
Country: US
Run Time: 103 minutes
Plot
Robert Montgomery is the director and star of the film noir mystery Lady in the Lake, adapted for the screen by source novelist Raymond Chandler. Montgomery plays detective Philip Marlowe, a private eye who just wants to publish his own crime stories. Kingsby Publications editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) meets with Marlowe, but offers him a job as a detective instead of a writer. She wants him to find the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby (Leon Ames). (Adrienne wants them to proceed with their divorce so she can marry Kingsby herself.) Marlowe accepts the job and goes looking for clues at the home of the wife's sometime lover, Chris Lavery (Dick Simmons). When Marlowe gets knocked out and picked up for drunk driving, he decides to drop the case. He is drawn back in, however, when Adrienne suggests that Kingsby's wife is responsible for the murder of a mysterious lady in the lake. Lloyd Nolan and Tom Tully play two police detectives also on the case. Lady in the Lake is remembered as being filmed with a subjective camera -- almost entirely from Marlowe's point of view -- and subsequently hyped by an MGM ad campaign. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Review
A completely original, knockout noir from director/star Robert Montgomery, Lady in the Lake features the quick, witty dialogue of the Raymond Chandler book, plenty of interesting camera angles (all from the point of view of the Phillip Marlowe character played by Montgomery), and many excellent supporting roles. Book editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) seems in the beginning of the film to be the obvious femme fatale. She does some serious acrobatics with her eyebrows whenever the camera focuses in close on her which it does a lot. Also, among the film's excellent cast are Tom Tully as the Bay City (Santa Monica) police captain who has a couple of great comical scenes speaking to his family on the phone, tough guy cop Lloyd Nelson who has it in for Marlowe, Leon Ames who plays Fromsett's anxious, millionaire boss and Richard Simmons as Chris Lavery, a creepy character who gets knocked off early in the film. Montgomery's use of the camera's point of view is clever and never a bothersome gimmick. It's quite experimental for a 1946 film as Montgomery films a car chase, a kiss, a knuckle sandwich, waking up in jail and crawling to a phone booth all from Marlowe's perspective. ~ Adam Bregman, All Movie Guide
Jayne Meadows - Mildred Haveland; Morris Ankrum - Eugene Grayson; Lila Leeds - Receptionist; William Roberts - Artist; Kathleen Lockhart - Mrs. Grayson; Eddie Acuff - Coroner; Charles Bradstreet - Party Guest; Wheaton Chambers - Property Clerk; Frank Dae - Party Guest; John Webb Dillon - Policeman; Ralph Dunn - Sergeant; Budd Fine - Policeman; John Gallaudet - Policeman; Sherry Hall - Party Guest; Cy Kendall - Jaibi; George Magrill - Policeman; Bert Moorhouse - Party Guest; William O'Leary; Frank Orth - Greer; Ellen Ross - Elevator Girl; Fred Santley - Party Guest; Fred E. Sherman - Reporter; Laura Treadwell - Party Guest; Robert B. Williams - Detective; David Cavendish - Party Guest; Ann Lawrence - Party Guest; Sandra Morgan - Party Guest; Robert Spencer - Marlowe's Double; Roger Cole - Christmas Party Guest; Thomas Murray - Policeman; William McKeever Riley - Bunny; Nina Ross; Florence Stephens - Party Guest; George Travell; Kay Wiley - Party Guest; Billy Newell - Drunk; James Nolan - Party Guest; Dick Simmons - Chris Lavery; Jack Davis - Policeman
Credit
Preston Ames - Art Director, Cedric Gibbons - Art Director, Irene - Costume Designer, Robert Montgomery - Director, Gene Ruggiero - Editor, David Snell - Composer (Music Score), Jack Dawn - Makeup, Paul Vogel - Cinematographer, George Haight - Producer, Edwin B. Willis - Set Designer, Arnold A. Gillespie - Special Effects, Raymond Chandler - Screenwriter, Steve Fisher - Screenwriter, Raymond Chandler - Book Author
