With his good looks and charm, Dick Powell takes the mantle of Marlowe in 1944 with Murder, My Sweet based on Chandler's 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely. RELATED: Nightmare Alley: Why Lilith Ritter Betrayed Stan Every actor, including Neeson, has had to engage with Marlowe in their own way, and over the 80 years that he's been brought to life on the screen, each performance has been uniquely memorable. Unlike film noir movie flop Nightmare Alley, the Marlowe movie (and the book), are able to engage modern audiences with the vintage material while still paying homage to Chandler's work. Marlowe uses Chandler's beloved private eye but takes its plot from another author's book 'The Black-Eyed Blonde,' a 2015 novel by John Banville that focuses on the sudden disappearance of sordid raconteur Niko Peterson. Characteristic of protagonists in the genre, Marlowe is an honest gumshoe operating in a corrupt world, often seen as naive and chaste by those around him but a dogged pursuer of the truth no matter the personal cost. Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe is considered one of the most well-known antiheroes in crime fiction, beginning with the hard-boiled variety that rose to prominence in the '20s. It's been 45 years since anyone watched Philip Marlowe solve crimes in a movie, and now Neil Jordan's Marloweplaces Liam Neeson among a unique cohort of actors who have played the famous literary detective, from the Golden Age of Hollywood to the gritty '70s.

The black eyed blonde by john banville