History of crime fiction quite complicated, forcing him to embark on an odyssey through the urban landscape. He is involved with organized crime and other lowlifes on the "mean streets" of, preferably, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, or Chicago. A hard-boiled private eye has an ambivalent attitude towards the police. It is his ambition to save America and rid it of its mean elements all by himself. As Raymond Chandler's protagonist Philip Marlowe—immortalized by actor Humphrey Bogart in the movie adaptation (1946) of the novel "The Big Sleep" (1939)—admits to his client, General Sternwood, he finds it rather tiresome, as an individualist, to
Monsieur Beaucaire (1946 film) Monsieur Beaucaire (1946 film) Monsieur Beaucaire is a 1946 comedy film starring Bob Hope as the title character, the barber of King Louis XV of France. It is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington. It is a remake of the 1924 Rudolph Valentino silent film of the same name "Monsieur Beaucaire". King Louis XV of France is invited by his rival King Philip V of Spain to choose a suitable husband for Philip's daughter, Princess Maria, as a gesture of unity between their two nations. Louis's choice is the Duc le Chandre, but the