Best Private Eye Films - An Interactive List

[Qrazy]

A rewatch of Who Framed Roger Rabbit inspired me. Have at it!

[right_for_the_moment]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/Images/night_moves1.jpg

can I throw in Veronica Mars, since I'm watching it now?

[right_for_the_moment]

http://iwatchfilm.com/content/default/english/images/movies/245271_3.jpg

[Qrazy]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/Images/night_moves1.jpg

can I throw in Veronica Mars, since I'm watching it now?

You can mention it as you have done, but let's stick to films. :)

[Amnesiac]

Would this count?

http://www.classicflix.com/images/highandlowset.jpg_copy1.jpg

[Winston*]

1. The Long Goodbye
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7826/57023006266ozb3.jpg

More movie posters should have cheesy banter in speech bubbles.

[Amnesiac]

Sterling Hayden is in that? Interesting. I was wondering what other movies he might be worth watching in besides The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing and, of course, Dr. Strangelove.

[chrisnu]

When I first saw The Long Goodbye, Sterling Hayden was entirely unrecognizable to me. I didn't even realize it until I later looked up the cast.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9581/bigsleep.jpg (http://img5.imageshack.us/i/bigsleep.jpg/)

[Qrazy]

6. Harper

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/1944/paulnewnam7iz9.jpg

[Qrazy]

7. The Thin Man

http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_01_img0491.jpg

[Qrazy]

8. The Maltese Falcon

http://generationfilm.files.wordpress .com/2009/06/maltese-falcon.jpg

[Qrazy]

9. Who Framed Roger Rabbit

http://gallery.awn.com/data/521/rogerRabbit.jpg

[Qrazy]

10. Blade Runner

http://editionsballard.files.wordpres s.com/2009/04/blade-runner-los-angeles-752153.jpg

[Dukefrukem]

11. Dick Tracy

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_03/dicktracyDM0304_468x673.jpg

[Kurosawa Fan]

12. The Conversation

http://www.workroomfilms.com/myroom/mayo07/media/conversation.jpg

[Mara]

For funsies.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/bullet.jpg

[balmakboor]

Isn't The Conversation more of a private ear film?

Anyway. I came in here to mention Altman's Long Goodbye, but someone beat me to it.

So I'll just say:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_9K88ifuseYA/SArGr7rwufI/AAAAAAAAABw/5hT3-rm3ff8/s320/fletch_movie_image_chevy_chase .jpg

[Raiders]

13. VERTIGO

http://www.personal.psu.edu/t3b/Tom%27smediafolder/media%20SpCom%20415%20Spring%2 02000/vertigo3.gif

[Eleven]

14. Out of the Past

http://www.moderntimes.com/palace/noir_image/past.jpg

[Mysterious Dude]

15. Shaft

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Shaft-Poster-C10134323.jpeg

[Mysterious Dude]

16. There's Something About Mary

http://www.grouchoreviews.com/content/films/3409/1.jpg

[Ivan Drago]

Would this count?

http://www.classicflix.com/images/highandlowset.jpg_copy1.jpg

Holy shit that DVD cover is awesome.

[chrisnu]

17. The Big Lebowski

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2083/2364378947_5686fe5269.jpg

[Ezee E]

#18. Naked Lunch
http://www.geocities.com/anuragbansal_uor/naked_lunch21.jpg

[Milky Joe]

19. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f61/Rosif/ace-ventura04.jpg

[Grouchy]

http://thanmoreseries.files.wordpress .com/2009/03/angel_heart_ver3.jpg

[Grouchy]

Regarding Sterling Hayden and The Long Goodbye - which I haven't seen yet:



Sterling Hayden was great. He was stoned all the time, drunk all the time. As a young man, at 20 or 21, he was the best merchant captain in the world. He'd run those routes and would drive his crew so hard...but he made all those routes on schedule. Then he was discovered for the movies, met Madeleine Carroll (The 39 Steps), who was 10 years older than he was, and they got married...he was really remarkable. I was very fond of him. Remember the party scene where Henry Gibson comes up and slaps him? I was actually living in that house where we shot. Sterling lived in an apartment three doors away on the beach. He would just walk to work. The wardrobe he wore in the film was just the clothes he happened to wear to work that day.

Anyhow, he'd gotten drunk the night before we were going to shoot the party scene. The next day he showed up, carrying a bottle of scotch. Henry Gibson was scared to death of slapping him, because Henry's this little guy and Sterling was this giant, 6'5, 225 pounds. Sterling just started improvising through the whole thing "You little albino prick..." (laughs) just letting him have it. He had a little Irish cap on that he always wore. We had two cameras on it and it was going well, but then I looked down and noticed how badly Henry's hand was shaking. I said "Henry, there's only one way to do this: you've got to hit him as hard as you fucking can. You're not going to hurt him, and he's too drunk to know it, anyway. Just let him have it." And he did, in such a way that Sterling's hat went off of his head, turned around and came back on his head, and the bill was now facing backward, and that was in the shot.

Then he takes the scotch bottle, and slams it down on this redwood table. That thick glass bottle of Johnny Walker just disintegrated! Just disappeared! Nobody was even hurt because it was just powder! I've never seen anything like it. He went into the house, flopped down on the couch. I had two angles on him, one master shot. I went in and said "Sterling?" He went "Aarrgghhh!!!" and he hit me (on the arm)! I said "Sterling we've got to do this again. Can you do it again?" He said "Aaargh, you fuckin' son of a...aarrggh!!" So he gets up and I use a tighter lens to shoot the close ups. He was saying not the same things, but kind of the same things.

So Henry hits him again, only this time, the hat doesn't turn around. So I'm thinking "Oh, shit!" Now Sterling's playing the scene with a wine bottle, made of breakaway glass, because we weren't going to see the bottle in this shot. I said "Just throw the bottle on the table, otherwise you're going to hurt somebody." I knew by that time he was completely drunk. So we do the scene again. Henry slaps him. The hat doesn't turn around again. I thought "Shit, I'm dead." Sterling smashes the bottle, turns around, and turns his hat around with his hand, and played the rest of the scene like that. How he remembered, I don't know. He went back inside and passed out on the couch, and we shot the rest of the day without him. The next day, it was a Saturday, I think, and we weren't working. I woke up late and he was down having coffee with my wife. I came down, he walks up and says "Bob, I'm so sorry. You can have my whole salary. I'm sorry for not showing up yesterday. I'll repay whatever it cost you." He didn't remember that he'd done the scene the day before! He did the whole thing in a blackout! I said "Sterling, you showed up," and we had to show him the dailies before he'd believe me. Something in his instincts kept him going.

[Qrazy]

Yeah Grouchy I really see you being a big fan of that one.

[Grouchy]

Yeah Grouchy I really see you being a big fan of that one.
If it helps, sometimes the book by Chandler is my all-time favorite novel.

Other times it's Lolita, but whatever.

[Bosco B Thug]

Regarding Sterling Hayden and The Long Goodbye - which I haven't seen yet:
That is awesome. Thanks for sharing. It reminds me I've never heard Altman speak. Where'd you find that, Grouchy?

EDIT: Oh wait, scratch that. Documentary on Images I heard him.

[Grouchy]

That is awesome. Thanks for sharing. It reminds me I've never heard Altman speak. Where'd you find that, Grouchy?

EDIT: Oh wait, scratch that. Documentary on Images I heard him.
This two-part interview (http://thehollywoodinterview.blogspot .com/2008/02/robert-altman-hollywood-interview.html) I read some months ago. Pretty solid stuff all around.

[Qrazy]

21. The Big Sleep

http://fromtheporch.files.wordpress.c om/2009/03/big-sleep-the_01.jpg

[Qrazy]

While a bit different I"m going to expand this list to include best detective films in general.

[Qrazy]

22. LA Confidential

http://blogs.amctv.com/future-of-classic/la-confidential-pearce560.jpg

[Qrazy]

23. Se7en

http://www.moviefreak.com/dvd/images/seven6.jpg