Robert Montgomery is the director and star of the film noir mystery Lady in the Lake, adapted for the screen by source novelist Raymond Chandler. Montgomery plays detective Philip Marlowe, a private eye who just wants to publish his own crime stories. Kingsby Publications editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) meets with Marlowe, but offers him a job as a detective instead of a writer. She wants him to find the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby (Leon Ames). (Adrienne wants them to proceed
with their divorce so she can marry Kingsby herself.) Marlowe accepts the job and goes looking for clues at the home of the wife's sometime lover, Chris Lavery (Dick Simmons). When Marlowe gets knocked out and picked up for drunk driving, he decides to drop the case. He is drawn back in, however, when Adrienne suggests that Kingsby's wife is responsible for the murder of a mysterious lady in the lake. Lloyd Nolan and Tom Tully play two police detectives also on the case. Lady in the Lake is remembered as being filmed with a subjective camera -- almost entirely from Marlowe's point of view -- and subsequently hyped by an MGM ad campaign. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
The trailer for the movie exclaims, 'Mysteriously starring Robert Montgomery and you!' Uh-huh. Still, it is a unique enough idea that you might want to give it a try.
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.
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.
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