''Poodle Springs'' is a 1998

neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

directed by

Bob Rafelson Robert Jay Rafelson (February 21, 1933 – July 23, 2022) was an American film director, writer and producer. He is regarded as one of the key figures in the founding of the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s. Among his best-known films as a d ...

, starring

James Caan James Edmund Caan ( ; March 26, 1940 – July 6, 2022) was an American actor. He came to prominence playing Sonny Corleone in ''The Godfather'' (1972), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Academy Award an ...

as private detective

Philip Marlowe Philip Marlowe ( ) is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The genre originated in the 1920s, notably in '' Black Mask'' magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Cont ...

. The film is based on the unfinished novel '' Poodle Springs'' by

Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...

, completed after his death by

Robert B. Parker Robert Brown Parker (September 17, 1932 – January 18, 2010) was an American writer, primarily of fiction within the mystery/detective genre. His most famous works include the 40 novels written about the fictional private detective Spenser. ...

and published in 1989. Playwright

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (; born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

wrote the screenplay.

Plot

In 1963, an aging Philip Marlowe (

) is newly married to young socialite Laura Parker (

Dina Meyer Dina Meyer (born December 22, 1968) is an American actress. She began her career appearing in a recurring role on the Fox teen drama series ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' (1993–94), before landing a leading role opposite Keanu Reeves in the 1995 fi ...

). The private investigator leaves his Los Angeles apartment behind and sets up a new base of operations in Poodle Springs, an upscale community in the desert a couple of hours from L.A. (a parody of

Palm Springs Palm Springs (Cahuilla language, Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Rivers ...

), where he and his wife intend to live. "I don't do divorces," Marlowe impatiently explains to potential clients in a peaceful, relatively crime-free town. His rich wife Laura would prefer that Philip get out of this line of work entirely and live off her money or come into business with P.J. Parker (

Joe Don Baker Joe Don Baker (February 12, 1936 – May 7, 2025) was an American actor, known for playing "tough guy" characters on both sides of the law. He established himself as an action star with supporting roles in the Westerns '' Guns of the Magnificent ...

), her politically connected father, but Marlowe isn't ready to permanently hang up his gun. While looking into a matter at a gambling club just beyond the city limits, Marlowe sets out to find a photographer with a gambling debt and is soon mixed up in blackmail and murder. Larry Victor, the photographer ( David Keith), is a bigamist, two-timing Laura's wealthy friend Muffy ( Julia Campbell) with a drug addict named Angel (

Nia Peeples Virenia "Nia" Peeples (born December 10, 1961) is an American R&B and dance music singer and actress. Peeples is known for playing Nicole Chapman on the TV series ''Fame (1982 TV series), Fame''; Pam Fields on the drama ''Pretty Little Liars''; ...

). He is threatening to expose photos of a former stripper (La Joy Farr) who is now running with Muffy's billionaire father, Clayton Blackstone ( Brian Cox). As things progress, Marlowe realizes that his new father-in-law is involved in a land swindle on such a massive scale that it could end up altering the California/Nevada state border. Also, any further snooping on the detective's part could quickly end his wedded bliss.

Cast

as Laura Parker-Marlowe * David Keith as Larry Victor / Charles Nichols *

as P.J. Parker *

Tom Bower Thomas Michael Bower (born 28 September 1946) is a British writer and former BBC journalist and television producer. He is known for his investigative journalism and for his unauthorised biographies, often of business tycoons and newspaper pr ...

as Lieutenant Arnie Burns * Julia Campbell as Miriam "Muffy" Blackstone-Nichols * Brian Cox as Clayton Blackstone *

as Angel *

Mo Gallini Mohamed Ghalayini (born February 15, 1966) is an American film and television actor, known by his stage name Mo Gallini. Biography Gallini was born Mohamed Ghalayini on February 15, 1966, in Miami, Florida. His father was from Lebanon, and his ...

as J.D.

References

External links

* {{Chandler American detective films Films based on American novels Films directed by Bob Rafelson Films scored by Michael Small Films set in 1963 1998 television films 1998 films Films set in Palm Springs, California Films with screenplays by Tom Stoppard Philip Marlowe films Films based on British novels American neo-noir films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films