Directed by John Brahm who directed two period piece Noir The Locket, and The Lodger before this film. Brahm began directing some TV after 1951 and eventually transitioned over. He directed a dozen episodes of The Twilight Zone, notably the classic episode "Time Enough at Last" with Burgess Meredith and quite a few of the series Noirish episodes. The Brasher Doubloon was based on Raymond Chandler's High Window, the screen play was by Dorothy Bennett from a adaptation by Leonard Praskins with Ring Lardner Jr. (Laura, The Big Night, and M*A*S*H) probably contributing some satirical material to the script.
The Cinematography was by Lloyd Ahern Sr. (Cry of the City, and later TV notably The Fugitive pilot movie and some episodes. Music was by David Buttolph.
The film stars George Montgomery as Philip Marlowe, Nancy Guild as Merle Davis, Conrad Janis as Leslie Murdock,Roy Roberts as Police Lt. Breeze, Fritz Kortner as Rudolph Vannier, Florence Bates as Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock, Marvin Miller as Vince Blair, Reed Hadley as Dr. Moss (uncredited), Paul Maxey as the coroner, and Housely Stevenson (Dark Passage) and Jack Overman (vet of 12 Classic Noir) as the apartment manager.
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| George Montgomery as Philip Marlowe |
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| Nancy Guild as Merle Davis |
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| Florence Bates as Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock |
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| Conrad Janis as Leslie Murdock |
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| Houseley Stevenson as Elisha Morningstar |
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| Marvin Miller as Vince Blair |
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| Paul Maxey as The Coroner |
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| Fritz Kortner as Rudolph Vannier |
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| Roy Roberts as Police Lt. Breeze |
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Jack Overman as Florence Apartments manager.png) |
Alfred Linder as Eddie Prue
I'd seen The Brasher Doubloon a long time ago, it was a crappy blurry copy and it didn't impress. I rewatched a very good copy of it the other night. Now after having viewed and having digested a lot more Noirs in between, I've upped my opinion of it.
What did the trick this go round is all the other bit players that I now recognized from all the other Films Noir. Character actors like Paul Maxey (The Narrow Margin, Highway 301, Deadline USA), Fritz Kortner (Anzelmo aka Dr. Oracle from Somewhere In the Night), Roy Roberts (from Nightmare Alley, Force of Evil, The Killer That Stalked New York), Reed Hadley (from The Dark Corner plus he V.O. narrated a lot of other Film Noir), Marvin Miller from his turn as the blind piano player at a Manhattan night club in Deadline At Dawn . These character actors now bring a lot of Cinematic Memory from the Film Noir "universe" to the film.
It just needed a little more Star power in the leads. This Noir is similar to my opinion of The Dark Corner, The Dark Corner with better known leads would have been up there in everybody's top 10, not just mine. It's even the exact same problem with Biff Elliot in the first I, The Jury with the great John Alton's cinematography.
It's a funny about imprinting but you tend to get your initial core opinion from that first view. Lucille Ball will forever be Lucy Ricardo. She's close to that scheming wisecrack Lucy character in The Dark Corner. The male lead Mark Stevens was adequate. Of course Clifton Webb and William Bendix
along with the cinematography are excellent.
One or two cast changes here in The Brasher Doubloon could have done the same here. Nancy Guild is fine but George Montgomery and Florence Bates could have been replaced, with say Richard Conte and Hope Emerson for example.
I'm also thinking that maybe the studio wanted to uses the "doubloon" title to try and make a tie in with The Maltese Falcon. lol.
It took to about the 4th watch where I finally sorted out the distractions of why isn't George Montgomery a good Marlowe and trying to compare him to Bogart, Dick Powell, or Robert Montgomery.
Montgomery with his mustache, reminds me too much of Zachary Scott, and his line delivery needed to be slowed down. A good example of what a change in delivery can do is watch all of Lee Van Cleef's films before he made For A Few Dollars More. Van Cleef had a quick line delivery where he invariably comes off as an impulsive hot head. Sergio Leone slowed his delivery down amped up the closeups of his face and "beady-eyed stare" and he became a Euro Star. Cracking wise and quick comebacks don't have to be sped up. Montgomery was originally a boxer wanting to go pro from Montana, before he hit Hollywood, so he had to be quick thinking and quick on his feet. He did mostly Westerns and Frontier epics on either side of this film, then ended up mostly doing TV.
Back to Zachary Scott for a moment, if you want to see what they could have done with Montgomery makeup-wise, check out Scott's rumpled alkie detective Max Thursday in Guilty Bystander.
Once you forget about Montgomery's (however you feel about it) depiction of Marlowe. Watch for the parade of character actors, the Visual flares of Style, the direction and camera angles. There's quite a few interesting camera setups, Shots of the shadows of palm fronds dappling over faces, and there's also a repeating gimmick where when he enters his office, Marlowe takes his hat off and frisbee's it over successfully to hook on the hat tree. I wonder how many takes it took Montgomery to get it perfected, lol.
Raymond Chandler's the High Window his third novel, may be the only one not to cannibalize any of his short stories. The Big Sleep used the two main short stories "Killer in the Rain" (published in 1935) and "The Curtain" (published in 1936). Farewell My Lovely used "Try the Girl", "Mandarin's Jade", and "The Man Who Liked Dogs". The fourth novel The Lady in the Lake Chandler used his detective John Dalmas short stories "The Lady in the Lake" (published in 1939); "Bay City Blues" (1938); and "No Crime in the Mountains."
The Story
The screenwriters jump start the tale by showing Marlowe commenting in first person VO about going out to to see a Mrs. Murdock in Pasadena and about the Santa Ana winds. Here, David Buttolph does a pretty good piece on the score to represent Pasadena and the desert (devils) winds. We also get an accompanying wind sound effect both outside and then again somewhat muted on the inside of the house.
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There's a meet cute at the door because Marlow has been telling us how in his minds eye Mrs. Murdock sounded like a cutie. He's not disappointed when the little speakeasy door opens an he sees Merle Davis. He assumes she's Mrs. Murdock but she tells him she's her secretary.
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Marlowe and Merle like what each other sees. I can actually see some chemistry now in this casting and the dialog. It leads to some interesting subtexts in the conversations between Merle and Marlowe throughout the film.
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| "You forgot to tell your mother that she doesn't want to see me." |
In the film, Marlowe also meets Leslie Murdock (another shortcut from the novel) right at the house, he's upset that mommy has called in a detective and tries to tell Marlowe that his mother changed her mind. At about that time Merle comes back at announces to Marlowe that Mrs. Murdock will see him now.
Merle warns Marlowe that Mrs. Murdock is a bit on eccentric side. Marlowe finds her seated in a high back peacock wicker chair sipping on her "medicine." She does not offer Marlowe a drink.
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She tells him she wants found and brought back to her a rare coin, a Brasher Doubloon. She does not want to go to the police she just wants the coin returned. Its worth $10,000. What alerted her to make the discovery that the coin could be missing was when a coin dealer, Elisha Morningstar, called her up asking if the Brasher Doubloon was for sale. (The film excises the whole storyline in the novel of Leslie's estranged wife being suspected by Mrs. Murdock as being the coin copping culprit.)
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They negotiate for $25 a day plus expenses and she coughs up $100 dollar check as a retainer. Then Mrs. Murdock begins to tell Marlowe how to do his job. Marlowe gets pissed and walks out of the room. He tells Merle that he's not taking the case and tries to give her the check but Merle convinces him to do it for her.
Marlowe heads back to the office and while endorsing Mrs Murdock's check, a Marlowe V.O. tells us that the first lesson a PI learns is to cash the client's check before they change their minds and stop payment.
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He's interrupted by a disfigured goon who shows up at the office. He says he works for Vince Blair owner of the Lucky Club he wants to pay him more money that Mrs Murdock's offering, not to take the case. He wants to give him a $200 dollar retainer. Marlow tells him to get lost so the goon pulls a gun. He's not quick enough reacting though and Marlow takes it away from him easily, unloads it, throws it back to him and tells him to get.
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Next stop is to Elisha Morningstar a rare coin dealer down in a shabby building near skid row. Marlowe goes down to visit and shake things up. Marlowe tells him he knows about his call to Mrs Murdock and threatens Morningstar by telling him that if you don't tell me who contacted you, you can tell it to the police.
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| "If you don't tell me you can tell the police" |
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Morningstar tells him that he will contact the man. Marlowe pretends to walk out of the outer office, slamming the door. Then he silently listens as Morningstar tells an operator that he wants the Florence Apartments and the name of George Anson.
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| "George Anson, Florence Apartments" |
The Florence Apartments are up on Bunker Hill. Montgomery drives up to the address. He stops in the foyer and checks the small display that announces that George Anson is a fellow PI. in room 204.
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| Corner of First Street (hill) and Olive - Bunker Hill |
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| The Florence Apartment building is actually the Gladden Apartments where Raymond Chandler actually lived at one point |
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The Florence Apartments are up on Bunker Hill. Montgomery drives up to the address. He stops in the foyer and checks the small display that announces that George Anson is a fellow PI. in room 204.
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| "I know where it is" |
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As Montgomery enters into the small lobby he sees the manager, through his open door on the way in, tells him he's going up to see George Anson and knows the way. He heads up the dimly lit stairway.
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The door to 204 is not closed and Marlow pushes it open. The place is ransacked.
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| Nothin' here |
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| Nothin' in there |
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| Oh shit! |
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| George is cooling off in the john |
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It all starts to go Noirsville when, in room 204, Marlowe finds two things, Anson dead wedged into his bathroom, and in a pocket notebook a Pacific Electric RR claim ticket for the baggage room at Central Station.
Noirsville
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| The Brasher Doubloon |
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| "take off your clothes" |
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| Mrs Murdock telling Merle do anything she has to to get the doubloon, wink, wink. |
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| Shadows on the walls |
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| Trying sex appeal |
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| The hat trick |
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Like I mentioned earlier, once you've seen and digested a lot of Noir and get to the point where you can forget about Bogart, Powell, and Robert Montgomery's various portrayals of Philip Marlowe you will enjoy this on it's own merits. Its fun watching for the character actors from other Film Noir and there's some amusing moments between Nancy Guild and Robert Montgomery. 7/10
The first Hollywood film based on Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels was 1942's Time To Kill, which incidentally was also based on Chandler's High Window. Lloyd Nolan starred and plays a detective named Michael Shayne but the case is basically the same. Watching Time To Kill you can see that Nolan would have made a better Marlowe he's a bit more convincing in the part.
Twentieth Century Fox and PRC made 12 Michael Shane detective films between them. They must have made money and you got to wonder WTF, right? Why didn't they treat Chandler's Marlowe with the same dedication, there were, if I remember right, 25 Chandler short stories that could have been fleshed out into films (eight of those however were cannibalized for the novels). If Hollywood can take a Hemingway short story The Killers and flesh it out into a full length film they could have done it with the Chandler shorts.
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