Marlowe (1969 film)

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Marlowe is a 1969 film about Raymond Chandler's fictional detective Philip Marlowe starring James Garner as Marlowe and featuring Bruce Lee (In his only villain role) as a thug who smashes Marlowe's office into pieces with karate chops. The supporting cast includes Gayle Hunnicutt, Rita Moreno, Carroll O'Connor, and Jackie Coogan. The mystery film was written by Stirling Silliphant from Chandler's work and directed by Paul Bogart. The film foreshadowed James Garner's second Los Angeles P.I. character Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files. Many of the wisecracking Marlowe lines written by Silliphant for this film could just as easily have come from the mouth of Garner's performance as the Rockford character. The film is rarely credited as being the direct inspiration for "The Rockford Files".