MARLOWE

Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe has been hired by Orfamay Quest, a young woman from Kansas, to find her brother, Orrin. Marlowe searches Orrin's former hotel room and interviews the shady hotel guest, Grant Hicks, he finds there. Returning downstairs he comes across the dead body of desk clerk, Haven Clausen, killed with an ice pick. Soon afterwards Hicks phones Marlowe to hire him to hold onto something for a day or two. When Marlowe gets to his location he finds Hicks dead with an ice pick buried in his neck. A masked, armed woman comes up behind Marlowe and knocks him out and flees. When he recovers, Marlowe searches the room and finds a claim ticket for a roll of photographs. He tells some of what happened to the police, but keeps the most important information to himself. Marlowe recalls that years earlier a crime gang in Brooklyn led by mobster Sonny Steelgrave had perfected a technique for killing its enemies with an ice pick, but they agree the connection is tenuous.

Marlowe tracks down the masked woman. She is television star Mavis Wald, and the photos are of her in a passionate rendezvous with the mobster boss Steelgrave, who has moved his operation west. Marlowe realizes that the murders stemmed from an initial attempt at blackmail. Marlowe calls on Wald, and while waiting to speak to her meets Wald’s friend, exotic dancer Dolores Gonzales. In private, Marlowe tells Wald his suspicion that she was at the hotel where Hicks was killed to pay him off, in return for the photos. He offers Wald his help, but she rejects it. Steelgrave makes several attempts to assault, scare or buy Marlowe off the case but they are all unsuccessful, resulting only in the death of an erudite Steelgrave henchman.

Orfamay tells Marlowe her brother is staying at the clinic of Dr. Vincent Lagardie, a connection Marlowe already knew of. He contacts an executive from Wald's hit TV show and secures a contract to work in her best interest. Marlowe questions Wald again, and from what he learns is able to clear her and Steelgrave of the murders. Marlowe then goes to the clinic and confronts the doctor, who tranquilizes him with a drugged cigarette but otherwise does not harm him. Marlowe comes to during the night and, still groggy, searches the clinic. He hears gunshots and stumbles upon the dying Orrin, who has just enough strength to stab Marlowe with an ice pick, although not seriously. Marlowe finds a photograph that reveals that Orfamay, Orrin and Wald are siblings. This makes Marlowe certain that Orrin was the blackmailer, who later killed Clausen and Hicks because they knew details of the blackmail scheme. Marlowe gets his wound tended to by Dolores. Now closely connected to another death, Marlowe is only able to keep the police at bay with a promise to solve the cases.

Marlowe returns to his office and burns the photos and negatives. He gets a visit from Dolores, who tells him Wald wants to see him at the mobster Steelgrave’s home. They leave watched by Dr. Lagardie. During their ride Marlowe learns that Dolores and Steelgrave had been romantically involved. Marlowe finds Steelgrave dead, and Wald disconsolate. She tells him she killed Steelgrave because he had her brother killed. To protect Wald's reputation, Marlowe makes it look as if Steelgrave committed suicide. However the police are not fooled, and the irate Lieutenant in charge resolves to have Marlowe’s private detective license revoked.

Marlowe catches Orfamay searching his home and tells her he has destroyed the photographs and negatives. Wald arrives and a heated confrontation between the women reveals that Orfamay knew about Orrin's blackmailing scheme and was expecting some money from it. When he disappeared she subsequently told Steelgrave where to find Orrin, in return for one thousand dollars. However she had expected Marlowe to stop Steelgrave from harming Orrin. Marlowe breaks up the fight between the sisters and manhandles the sobbing Orfamay out of his home, telling her to go back to Kansas. Wald admits to Marlowe, who had already deduced it, that she pretended to have killed Steelgrave to protect her sister, who she thought had actually killed him.

Marlowe confronts Dolores, from offstage while she is performing her nightclub act, with his suspicions that she was Orrin's original partner in the blackmail. She did so, Marlowe suggests, because she was still in love with Steelgrave and wanted to force him and Wald apart. He also tells Dolores he thinks she was once married to Dr. Lagardie, when he was a young doctor in Brooklyn. Still dancing on stage, Dolores, when she gets near the side curtain where Marlowe is standing, admits to everything. She is scornful of Marlowe having this knowledge, saying he will never tell the police, as it would destroy Wald’s career. Marlowe leaves the backstage area of the club just as Dr. Lagardie enters from a rear door. The two men see each other, without incident. Marlowe phones the police. Moments later Dr. Lagardie steps out and shoots Dolores dead. The doctor then shoots himself. Marlowe leaves the club before the police arrive.

Marlowe uncovers that Orfamay's brother Orrin was behind the blackmail scheme and the ice pick murders; Orrin is killed, and Marlowe destroys the incriminating photographs, clearing Mavis Wald.

The ending ties the string of murders directly to a desperate attempt to conceal family secrets, showing how even innocents can get swept up in L.A.'s web of corruption. Marlowe’s destruction of the photos signals both his moral center and genre-savvy understanding that justice sometimes exists outside official procedures. The case closes not with triumph but with damage controlled and reputations—if not lives—preserved.