Philip Marlowe - Influences and Adaptations

Influences and Adaptations

• In the pilot episode of Bored to Death the main character Jonathan Ames played by Jason Schwartzman reads Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely and uses the name Philip Marlowe as a pseudonym. Marlowe has appeared in short stories and novels by writers other than Chandler, such as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration (1988).
• The central character in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective is crime novelist Philip E. Marlow, portrayed in the original TV version by Michael Gambon and in the later film version by Robert Downey, Jr.
• Marlowe is referenced in the lyrics to Burton Cummings's 1979 song "Dream of a Child" and Mark Knopfler's homage to him in the song "Private Investigations" by Dire Straits.
• The two main characters of the film Radioactive Dreams are named Philip and Marlowe; Philip narrates it in a similar style as Chandler's novels.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Big Goodbye" (obviously in reference to The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye), a computer malfunction traps Picard, Data, and Beverly in a 1940s Dixon Hill detective story holodeck program. Dixon Hill is an homage to such characters as Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, among others.