Marlowe: No! Liam Neeson is not the first actor to play the role of this private detective

The iconic detective

Philip Marlowe, the character of this private detective, created by the writer Raymond Chandler in 1934, has already been interpreted by several great stars: Dick Powell (Goodbye, My Beautiful, 1944), Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep, 1946), Robert Montgomery (The Lady of the Lake, 1947), George Montgomery (The Cursed Room, id.), James Garner (Gangster Waltz, 1969), Elliott Gould (Le Privé, 1973), Robert Mitchum (Adieu ma jolie, 1975, Le Big). Sleep, 1978), James Caan (Grace at Puddle Springs, 1998) and Thomas Hanak (Mazani Philip, 2003).

A Neil Jordan film is also inspired by the novel “The Black-Eyed Blonde. The Return of Philip Marlowe” By John Banville, published in 2015.

Re-creating Los Angeles in 1939

Production designer John Bird talks about the main challenges he and his team had to overcome during filming: This look, in Spain, got me the most since I had to adjust to 2021 Barcelona in 1939 Los Angeles.

“Finding enough working American cars from the 1920s and 1930s in Spain for our actors to drive added to the complexity of our mission. I knew this was a necessary prop…”

“And so I spent a lot more time than usual setting up scenes when we were shooting on location.”

A fetish actress

Neil Jordan has already played Liam Neeson in High Spirits (1988), Michael Collins (1996) and Breakfast on Pluto (2005). The 70-year-old actor explains about the character: “I think Philip Marlowe is almost in the Arthurian cycle: he has certain moral values ​​that he’s trying to protect, and he’s lonely. To me, he’s a life-hardened private detective, and nothing is shocking anymore. In people.”

unification

Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger were already the main characters in the thriller Unknown (2011). The actor confides in his character in Marlowe: “Claire grew up extremely wealthy and is the daughter of a very famous movie star (played by Jessica Lange).”

“He has a very conflicted relationship with his mother. He comes from a very privileged family, but he knows very well that his money is not really his, so he depends on his mother, which he hates even more. He is very intelligent and he is looking for true love.”

Shooting in Spain

To recreate 1930s Los Angeles, the team took several locations in Spain, such as a factory converted into a Hollywood studio, a disused cotton mill converted into a police station and a nightclub. It was converted from a ruined beach. A massage parlor for gangsters! John Bird adds: “The water scenes are always the most difficult, logistically and budget-wise.”

“We needed an outdoor pool for the Los Angeles Country Club, but there wasn’t one we had chosen and I knew Neil needed it. So I had to build it. In another sequence, the underground aquarium that’s located underneath the club explodes and the water spreads all over the place. To control and get some shots, we shot it in a studio, so I built an ‘aquarium in a Dublin studio’.