I don't want to get too much into literary criticism here, but there are critics who make strong cases for Marlowe being more like Lebowski than you think-- if you read the books carefully, he can be interpreted as fairly incompetent, succeeding almost by accident.Cobalt60 wrote:I love that about this movie, its a total send up of the pulp/detective genre but done in such a clever way as to be almost unrecognizable as such on a first viewing. It completely turns the genre's conventions upside down, the Dude could not be any less Philip Marlowe. The way that its very episodic as the Dude's "investigation" brings him in contact with a variety of unusual people that are all none-the-less connected to the larger mystery. Maude Lebowski makes an unlikely "femme fatal" entering the story with her own agenda and unclear intentions. Even the "big" Lebowski being confined to his wheel chair in his cavernous mansion with a young trophy wife who is known to galavant around town is reminiscent of the wheel chair bound old man from Chandlers "The Big Sleep" who's daughter is something of a hellion. We even get a POV shot of the Dude as he slips into unconsciousness. I just regret that I discovered this film when it went to cable and not when it first hit the theaters.
There are more Chandler connections than just the instigator in the wheelchair-- for example the trip out of town to see a suspect where the "detective" finds himself totally out of his depth, is drugged, abused/threatened by a local cop and tossed out on the street is straight out of one of the novels, but I'm fucked if I can remember which one (I'm out of town and can't check my books). I think it's the one with the totally sketchy "doctor" who has the massive bodyguard that Marlowe calls The Indian (or something like that), but I'm not 100% sure.