Lady in the Lake (1947)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Pierluigi P

  
  Though the fist person point of view may be an annoying gimmick that slows down the plot, it's an interesting excercise with some sequences full of oppresive atmosphere and suspense, for instance when Marlowe discovers the body; also the car chase and the ending.

• Tim S

  
  This has some great stuff in it, but it's too mediocre to give it really high marks. The POV stuff can be a bit on the boring and uninteresting side, which is why I think it failed a bit for me.

• jay n

  
  Tough little noir. The audience POV is a gimmick but not one that ruins the enjoyment of the film, actually what could have been dispensed with was when Montgomery shows up sporadically to provide info for the viewer which would have been better as a voice over. Totter is a great noir… More
  Tough little noir. The audience POV is a gimmick but not one that ruins the enjoyment of the film, actually what could have been dispensed with was when Montgomery shows up sporadically to provide info for the viewer which would have been better as a voice over. Totter is a great noir heroine, pretty but with a hardness to her features and attitudes that make her perfect for the genre.

• Veronique K

  
  "lady in the lake" is an amateurish noir by robert montgomery's gimmicky experiment of filmmaking with raymond chandler's novel by the same name. it utilizes the entire first-person perspective which is also applied in humprey bogart's "dark passage"… More
  "lady in the lake" is an amateurish noir by robert montgomery's gimmicky experiment of filmmaking with raymond chandler's novel by the same name. it utilizes the entire first-person perspective which is also applied in humprey bogart's "dark passage" which was also released around the same time in 1947. but montgomery's trial is thorough becuz montgomery's philip marlowe is basically just a narrator, a void awaiting to be filled by the audience. first of all, it takes a great deal of imagination as well as some enduring composure as a constant reader to visualize oneself in the position of philip marlowe as you're reading chandler's detective novels with his die-hard ace marlowe. as an enthusiastic reader of chandler's novels, i've found montgomery's primitive direction borders on my perception of the plots as i leaf one page after another. obviously, i cannot help but wonder whether montgomery's choice of such kind of directing is due to his limited craftmanship as a director since he cannot think any other way to present a movie? second of all, the process of film-viewing is a highly passive involvement with the original texts since the filmakers have filled in the pages with their own envisioning of the story. as a viewer, you're detached in a position to judge whether the fimmaker's presentation is marvellously creative or not with a smugly ignorant condescendence even you've not got in touch with the texts beforehand. but on the contrary, reading is an active experience or commitment to devote your absolute attention into the story, and you're more left alone with your own imaginations on the characters, backset and the stream of consciousness kind of soliloquy as the character's self-revelation...you concede into the author's viewpoint at the moment you open the book or you wouldn't dedicate your time and efforts on consuming all the materials..when you're reading, you're fabricating a movie made on your own with your mind in absolute privacy.... so "lady in the lake" is merely a passable movie-piece since the director cannot offer you anything more than a whirling camera with some bizarre hand gestures. but somehow it simulates your inward state as you read the original books while imagining yourself as marlowe and see things in his angle...meanwhile it also lacks a sort of deepening refinement of characters' dimensions which the book usually renders by monologues..in the case, it proves that audrey totter is indeed a good actress who could pull off an acting job by playing opposite to an abscent leading man, shedding tears to a lifeless machine without the helpful eye-contact in the love scenes.

• Michael G

  
  I spent the first 45 minutes annoyed by the crabbiness with which Robert Montgomery played Phillip Marlowe, but I eventually warmed up to Lady in the Lake. The whole 1st person POV was really gimmicky kind of annoying for a little while (especially with the crappy editing between… More
  I spent the first 45 minutes annoyed by the crabbiness with which Robert Montgomery played Phillip Marlowe, but I eventually warmed up to Lady in the Lake. The whole 1st person POV was really gimmicky kind of annoying for a little while (especially with the crappy editing between shots) but you eventually go numb to it. The segues with Marlowe in his office bugged me and tipped me off to the fact that Montgomery was clueless in the director's chair. As with any Chandler, the dialogue's as great as the story is. Audrey Totter turns in a performance that's sultry as all hell when she's not giving the stink eye or overly dramatic expressions. If you ever check it out you've got to stick with it and not dismiss it before the first act is up. The ending's worth it.

• Patrick D

  
  A film that's one big gimmick, but fun to sit through once, even if it does take you out of the film. Think Half-Life set in a Film-noir setting, yet it's mostly those parts where people talk to you and you have nothing to shoot.

Read all 6 featured audience ratings