Could be the worst movie ever.

I'm a big Raymond Chandler fan. His detective novels, featuring PI Philip Marlowe, are the best, and some of my most favorite books period. Many of his stories have been adapated for the screen, and in 1947 the story "The Lady in the Lake" was made into a movie. It's a great story of murder and hate and mistrust and backstabbing.

Flipping through channels yesterday, I came into the middle of this movie. It's directed by and stars an actor named Robert Montgomery. Since the book was written in first person, common for detective novels, he decided to film the movie "in first person." The result is incredibly long, boring takes with actors looking at the camera as Montgomery delivers hard-boiled dialogue, badly.

You can't see anything except from his point of view. If the person he's talking to turns away, you watch the back of somebody's head for five minutes. Somebody tells Marlowe to sit down, and the camera pans to a chair nearby. Excrutiatingly boring.

MGM trumpeted this "amazing new technique," saying, "YOU and ROBERT MONTGOMERY solve a murder!" Terrible idea. Never done again, and now I know why.

UPDATE: LWC reports that Robert Montgomery is the father of Elizabeth Montgomery, Samantha from Bewitched. Insert nose twitch here.