to create a tarnished knight in the American idiom (in a scene from his novel which was not included in the movie, Marlowe stares at a painting of a knight rescuing a lady and remarks that if he owned the painting he would “sooner or later have to climb up there and help”). Chandler succeeded to such an extent that Marlowe became archetypal, the world-weary private eye with his fedora and cigarette and wisecracks. But noir—at least as most of us understand it—is about weakness, fear, and isolation. Chandler’s tarnished knight descends into the lower depths, but he remains a knight—or as Chandler himself wrote, Marlowe remains “puzzled, but never quite defeated.”

One would be hard pressed to find a better director for that worldview than Howard Hawks. Generallyfilm of Carmen high on drugs. Taylor loves Carmen and probably means to destroy the film. In the novel, by the way, Carmen was naked in the picture.

3. Joe Brody kills Owen Taylor and takes the film which he then uses to blackmail Carmen.

4. Carol Lundgren, chauffer and implied lover of Geiger, kills Joe Brody. He thinks Brody killed Geiger.

Jake Hinkson, The Night Editor, is the author of The Posthumous Man and Saint Homicide.

Read all posts by Jake Hinkson for Criminal Element.