A man comes out of one bookstore and looks across the street at another: was this the heyday of American civilization? The street is moderately busy, passersby et cetera, and there is subdued Max Steiner music in the air, alert or wary, call it background italic, as if in 1946 such readiness was as detectable as smoke in the city‘s crisp fragrance. In a dark suit and a fedora, the man walks across the street. He seems headed for this other bookstore. But as he comes to the far sidewalk he passes a fire hydrant, and then, without a need in the world, but as if he has an inner life we’ll never know, he pats the top of the hydrant and moves on. If you want a glimpse of how good we were then, and what it meant to us — the movie thing — you could find worse than this.
— David Thomson (Liberties)
Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.