Philip Marlowe – Raymond Chandler featured the private eye in eight novels, the first of which was published in 1939. Marlowe is one of the most popular fictional detectives ever adapted for the big screen. Dick Powell was the first to play him (“Murder, My Sweet”), followed immediately by the most famous Marlowe incarnation ever – Humphrey Bogart in “The Big Sleep.” Other actors who have played Marlowe in films and on television include James Caan, Danny Glover, Powers Boothe, Elliott Gould, James Garner, George Montgomery and, of course, Robert Mitchum.

The 1946 classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. When an L.A. private eye is hired by a rich family to resolve a blackmail case, he encounters a trail of murderers, pornographers, nightclub rogues, the spoiled rich and what might be love.