Poodle Springs | |
---|---|
Genre | Crime Drama |
Based on |
Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler Robert B. Parker |
Screenplay by | Tom Stoppard |
Directed by | Bob Rafelson |
Starring |
James Caan Dina Meyer David Keith |
Music by | Michael Small |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Executive producers |
Jon Avnet William Horberg Jordan Kerner Sydney Pollack Geoff Stier (co-executive producer) |
Producers |
Tony Mark DTeflon (assistant producer) |
Cinematography | Stuart Dryburgh |
Editor | Steven Cohen |
Running time | 100 minutes |
Production companies | Avnet/Kerner Productions Mirage Enterprises HBO Pictures Universal Television |
Original release | |
Network | HBO |
Release | July 25, 1998 |
Poodle Springs is a 1998 neo-noir HBO film directed by Bob Rafelson, starring James Caan as private detective Philip Marlowe. [1]
The film is based on the unfinished novel Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler, completed after his death by Robert B. Parker and published in 1989. [1]
Playwright Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay. [1]
In 1963, an aging Philip Marlowe ( James Caan) is newly married to young socialite Laura Parker ( Dina Meyer). The private investigator leaves his Los Angeles apartment behind and sets up a new base of operations in Poodle Springs, an upscale community in the desert a couple hours from L.A. (a parody of Palm Springs), where he and his wife intend to live.
"I don't do divorces," Marlowe impatiently explains to potential clients in a peaceful, relatively crime-free town. His rich wife Laura would prefer that Philip get out of this line of work entirely and live off her money or come into business with P.J. Parker ( Joe Don Baker), her politically connected father, but Marlowe isn't ready to permanently hang up his gun.
While looking into a matter at a gambling club just beyond the city limits, Marlowe sets out to find a photographer with a gambling debt and is soon mixed up in blackmail and murder.
Larry Victor, the photographer ( David Keith), is a bigamist, two-timing Laura's wealthy friend Muffy ( Julia Campbell) with a drug addict named Angel ( Nia Peeples), and he is threatening to expose photos of a former stripper (La Joy Farr) who is now running with Muffy's billionaire father, Clayton Blackstone ( Brian Cox).
As things progress, Marlowe realizes that his new father-in-law is involved in a land swindle on such a massive scale that it could end up altering the California/Nevada state border. And any further snooping on the detective's part could quickly put an end to his wedded bliss.