Classic Private Eyes:

Classic film noir in the 1940s, from detective novel authors Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, provided a number of private eyes - notably Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

Sam Spade -

None of the detectives was more impressive than writer Dashiell Hammett's classic and definitive hard-boiled, tough sleuth or shamus named Sam Spade, in John Huston's masterpiece The Maltese Falcon (1941), a story of the frenzied pursuit of a Middle Eastern statuette. The lead was played by astute actor Humphrey Bogart. [Ten years earlier, Ricardo Cortez played the role of Sam Spade in Roy Del Ruth's The Maltese Falcon (1931) (aka Dangerous Female).]

• The Maltese Falcon (1931) - Ricardo Cortez as Spade
• Satan Met a Lady (1936) - Warren William as Ted Shane (the second adaptation of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Humphrey Bogart as Spade
• The Life of Riley (1949) - Howard Duff as voice of Sam Spade (on radio show)
• The Black Bird (1975) - George Segal as "Sammy" Spade, Jr. (a comedy sequel to the 1941 film)
• The Strange Case of the End of Civilization As We Know It (1977, UK) - Mike O'Malley as Spade (a Sherlock Holmes spoof)
• Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), 4 actors (Lon Satton, Rosita Yarboy, Keith Hodiak, Pepsi Maycock) known as Sam Spade and the Private Eyes

Philip Marlowe -

Bogey also portrayed novelist Raymond Chandler's gumshoe Philip Marlowe in the tangled intrigue of Howard Hawks' classic detective thriller The Big Sleep (1946). Tough-guy Bogart also made screen history with his co-star Lauren Bacall in this popular rendition. Other actors have portrayed Raymond Chandler's Marlowe.

• Murder, My Sweet (1944) - Dick Powell as Marlowe
• The Big Sleep (1946) - Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe
• Lady in the Lake (1947) - Robert Montgomery as Marlowe
• The Brasher Doubloon (1947) - George Montgomery as Marlowe
• Philip Marlowe (1959-1960) (TV series, 26 episodes) - Philip Carey as Marlowe
• Marlowe (1969) - James Garner as Marlowe
• The Long Goodbye (1973) - Elliot Gould as Marlowe
• Farewell, My Lovely (1975) - Robert Mitchum as Marlowe
• The Big Sleep (1978, UK) - Robert Mitchum as Marlowe
• Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983-1986) (TV series) - Powers Boothe as Marlowe
• Poodle Springs (1998) (TV movie) - James Caan as Marlowe

The following chart helps to differentiate between all the various versions:

Mike Hammer -

Writer Mickey Spillane created the brutal and violent 'hard-boiled' character of Mike Hammer in his debut 1947 trashy novel, I, the Jury. It was also the title of the first Mike Hammer film: I, the Jury (1953), and the later 1982 remake. The private eye was anti-Communist, very patriotic, carried a Colt .45, and was contemptuous of the legal process, although he respected traditional law enforcement. He had a partner, a secretary named Velda (portrayed variously in the feature films by Margaret Sheridan, Maxine Cooper, Pamela Duncan, and Laurene Landon). There were five 'Mike Hammer' feature films from 1953 to 1982.

• I, the Jury (1953), UA, filmed in 3-D, starring Biff Elliot
• Kiss Me Deadly (1955), UA, d. Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker
• My Gun Is Quick (1957), UA, starring Robert Bray
  
• The Girl Hunters (1963, UK), Colorama Features, with author Mickey Spillane as Hammer!
  
• I, the Jury (1982), 20th Century Fox, a remake of the 1953 film, with Armand Assante as Hammer

There were six TV movies in the 1980s and 90s, and four TV series based upon fictitious New York-based private detective Mike Hammer, portrayed by four different actors:

• Margin for Murder (1981) (TV), with Kevin Dobson as Hammer
• Murder Me, Murder You (1983) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer
• More Than Murder (1984) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer
• The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1986) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer
• Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (1989) (TV), with Stacey Keach as Hammer
• Come Die with Me: A Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer Mystery (1994) (TV), with Rob Estes as Hammer
  
  
• Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1957-1959) (syndicated TV series, with 78 episodes), with Darren McGavin
• Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1984-1985) (CBS-TV series, with 24 episodes), with Stacey Keach
• The New Mike Hammer (1986-1987) (CBS-TV series, with 22 episodes), with Stacey Keach (a continuation of the earlier show)
• Mike Hammer, Private Eye (1997-1998) (syndicated TV series with 26 episodes), also with Stacey Keach

Michael Shayne -

This popular, fictional Irish-American private detective was another of the popular pulp detectives in the 1940s. The character was created by Davis Dresser (pseudonym Brett Halliday) and debuted in the novel Dividend on Death in 1939. The first appearance of Shayne in the movies was in a 7-film series of 20th Century Fox productions (from 1940-1942), starring Lloyd Nolan, and then a 5-film series of low-budget PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) productions (from 1946-1947), starring Hugh Beaumont. Later, an NBC-TV series (from 1960-1961, with 32 episodes) starred Richard Denning as the title character, Michael Shayne.

• Michael Shayne – Private Detective (1940), all with Lloyd Nolan, from 20th Century Fox
• Sleepers West (1941)
• Dressed to Kill (1941)
• Blue, White and Perfect (1942)
• The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1942)
• Just Off Broadway (1942)
• Time to Kill (1942)
  
  
• Murder Is My Business (1946), all with Hugh Beaumont, from PRC
• Larceny in Her Heart (1946)
• Blonde for a Day (1946)
• Three on a Ticket (1947)
• Too Many Winners (1947)

Nancy Drew -

The adventures of 16 year-old, quick-witted, school-girl sleuth Nancy Drew, adapted from the series of mass-produced books from Edward Stratemeyer and his daughter Harriet S. Adams (with nom de plume Carolyn Keene), became the subject of four Warner Bros. films in the late 1930s, starring teenaged actress Bonita Granville:

• Nancy Drew, Detective (1938), WB, d. William Clemens, with Bonita Granville
• Nancy Drew - Reporter (1939)
• Nancy Drew - Trouble Shooter (1939)
• Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939)
  
  
• Nancy Drew (2007), WB, d. Andrew Fleming, with Emma Roberts

Dick Tracy -

Dick Tracy was a detective who first appeared in Chester Gould's early 1930s action-adventure comic strip - it became an enduring and popular newspaper comic strip that was drawn by Gould until 1977. Dick Tracy originally appeared in four action-packed Republic Pictures' serial films from 1937 to 1941 (all starring Ralph Byrd), then in four RKO feature films (two with Morgan Conway, and two with Ralph Byrd), and a short-lived TV series and TV pilot. There was a major attempt to revive Dick Tracy with a 1990 film starring Warren Beatty. There was also a popular 1940s radio program.

• Dick Tracy (1937) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd
• Dick Tracy Returns (1938) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd
• Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd
• Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc. (1941) - 15 part serial, Republic Pictures, with Ralph Byrd
  
  
• Dick Tracy (1945) - RKO, with Morgan Conway
• Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946) - RKO, with Morgan Conway
• Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947) - RKO, with Ralph Byrd
• Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947) - RKO, with Ralph Byrd
  
  
• Dick Tracy (1950-1951) (ABC-TV series) - with Ralph Byrd
• Dick Tracy (1967) (The Plot to Kill NATO) (TV series pilot) - with Ray MacDonnell
• Dick Tracy (1990) - Buena Vista Pictures, with Warren Beatty

A Renaissance of Police Detectives:

Dana Andrews, an obsessed detective who was assigned to investigate the murder of a beautiful woman (Gene Tierney) and question suspects (Vincent Price and Clifton Webb) in Otto Preminger's classic Laura (1944), fell in love with a painting of the victim. In the second film version of Dashiel Hammett's novel about political corruption, The Glass Key (1942), Alan Ladd in one of his earliest films starred opposite Veronica Lake as a deadpan hero. He was often beat up by sado-masochistic gangster William Bendix during his pursuit of the truth. Glenn Ford portrayed an unrestrained police detective in pursuit of his wife's killers and corrupt cops in Fritz Lang's film noirish The Big Heat (1953). In William Wyler's seminal cop film Detective Story (1951), bitter, tough, and by-the-book NYC detective Kirk Douglas discovered that his wife (Eleanor Parker) had a guilty secret.

In two films, Paul Newman portrayed investigative detective Lew Harper: Jack Smight's Harper (1966), and The Drowning Pool (1975).

New life was infused into the detective film genre in the late 60s and the 70s, in stylish, avant-garde homages to the film noir genre, with various private eye/police thrillers:

• Blake Edwards' Tony Rome (1967) with Frank Sinatra as the private eye
• John Boorman's stylistic Point Blank (1967) starring Lee Marvin as a double-crossed criminal on the path of revenge to collect $93,000 due to him ("Somebody's gotta pay")
• award-winning In The Heat Of The Night (1967) with Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs - a black Philadelphian detective assisting in a homicide investigation in the South with a white racist chief of police (Rod Steiger); two sequels with Lieut. Detective Virgil Tibbs came later: They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971)
• director Peter Yates' cop drama Bullitt (1968) with Steve McQueen (in one of his greatest performances) as a stoic police lieutenant assigned the dangerous task of protecting a star mob witness - its San Francisco car chase sequence is still considered one of the best in film history
• Eastwood starred as an Arizona deputy brought to NYC to fight crime in Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff (1968) - featuring an exciting motorcycle chase [this was Siegel's and Eastwood's first pairing]
• Frank Sinatra portrayed a tough NY detective involved in the case of the murder of a homosexual in The Detective (1968)
• Richard Widmark as a tough Brooklyn cop in Madigan (1968)
• Alan J. Pakula's thriller Klute (1971) with small-town detective Donald Sutherland investigating the stalking of a high-priced NYC hooker (Jane Fonda) by a killer
• Robert Blake as an Arizona motorcycle cop in Electra Glide in Blue (1973)
• a group of NYC detectives (including Roy Scheider) pursued criminals in innumerable car chases in The Seven-Ups (1973)
• Charles Bronson starred as a NY cop in LA fighting against a criminal group of Vietnam vets in The Stone Killer (1973)
• the complex private eye story of cynical J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) in search of corruption (land-grabs and water rights scandals) in 1930s Los Angeles in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974)
• in director John Sturges' McQ (1974) and Douglas Kickox's Brannigan (1975), John Wayne starred as an aging police officer
• Robert Mitchum portrayed a weary ex-GI who returned to Japan to help an army friend locate his Mob-kidnapped daughter in The Yakuza (1975)

The Dirty Harry Films:

In the early 70s and for almost two decades, Clint Eastwood starred as the magnum-packing Dirty Harry. The original film in the series about the fascist, vigilante-hero cop was the action film Dirty Harry (1971), directed by Eastwood's directorial mentor Don Siegel. It unleashed a flurry of similar, quasi-Mickey Spillane thrillers. In the first of many sequels, Eastwood starred as the intolerant Harry Callahan on the trail of the elusive 'Scorpio killer':

• Dirty Harry (1971)
• Magnum Force (1973)
• The Enforcer (1976)
• Sudden Impact (1983)
• The Dead Pool (1988)

In the same decade, director William Friedkin's crime thriller The French Connection (1971) won the Best Picture Academy Award for its realistic story of the pursuit of drug kingpins and a shipment of heroin by two unorthodox New York City police detectives (Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle and Roy Scheider). The pursuit of the drug dealers in Marseilles continued in director John Frankenheimer's The French Connection II (1975). Gene Hackman also portrayed a Hollywood detective on the track of a missing, reckless nymphet teenager (a young Melanie Griffith) in the Florida Keys in director Arthur Penn's suspenseful but under-rated Night Moves (1975). In Stephen Frears' satirical British film Gumshoe (1972), Albert Finney as a Liverpool nightclub worker lived out his dream by becoming a detective to solve a murder mystery.

The Lethal Weapon Series:

A popular multi-part, LA cop adventure series featured the partner duo of retiring cop Danny Glover and a suicidally-crazed Mel Gibson:

• Lethal Weapon (1987)
• Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
• Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)
• Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

Recent Mystery Films: Crime Thrillers

In the Coen Brothers' dark Blood Simple (1983), sleazy private eye Emmet Walsh was hired by a jealous husband to kill his adulterous wife (Frances McDormand) and her lover. Their dramatic mystery crime-thriller Fargo (1996) featured Best Actress-winning Frances McDormand as an unconventional, pregnant police investigator named Marge. Anthony Minghella's noirish thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) set in sun-drenched Italy was a Hitchcock-like study of a psychopath and his victims.

Another Variety of Mystery Film: Detective Spoofs and Comedies

The long-running TV series Dragnet was spoofed by Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd in Tom Mankiewicz' Dragnet (1987).

And Peter Sellers appeared as clumsy, inept, and accident-prone French Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the popular series of slapstick Pink Panther detective comedies in the 60s with theme music supplied by Henry Mancini - and after (recently two films with comedian Steve Martin):

Inspector Clouseau Films -

• The Pink Panther (1963), d. Blake Edwards (with Peter Sellers)
• A Shot in the Dark (1964), d. Blake Edwards (with Peter Sellers, and two new recurring characters: Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) and houseboy Cato (Burt Kwouk))
• Inspector Clouseau (1968, UK/US), d. Bud Yorkin (with Alan Arkin as Inspector Clouseau)
• The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), d. Blake Edwards (again with Peter Sellers)
• The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), d. Blake Edwards (with Peter Sellers)
• Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), d. Blake Edwards (with Sellers' last appearance in a Pink Panther film, two years before his death)
• Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), d. Blake Edwards, (with Peter Sellers, but composed only of out-takes and other clips)
• Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), d. Blake Edwards, (with Roger Moore as Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau - (as Turk Thrust II), and Ted Wass as Sgt. Clifton Sleigh - a Clouseau knock-off)
• Son of the Pink Panther (1993), d. Blake Edwards (with Roberto Benigni as Gendarme Jacques Gambrelli - the illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau)
• The Pink Panther (2006), d. Shawn Levy (with Steve Martin)
• The Pink Panther 2 (2009), d. Harald Zwart (with Steve Martin)