Lady in the Lake is a 1947 American film noir starring Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully, Leon Ames and Jayne Meadows.

An adaptation of the 1943 Raymond Chandler murder mystery The Lady in the Lake, the picture was also Montgomery's directorial debut, and last in either capacity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) after eighteen years with the studio.

As director, Montgomery's ambition was to create a cinematic version of the first-person narrative style of Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels.

[2] The script changes the novel's midsummer setting to December, frequently using cheery Christmas themes as an ironic counterpoint to grim aspects of the story.

Tired of the low pay of his profession, hard-boiled Los Angeles private detective Phillip Marlowe submits a murder story to Kingsby Publications.

One month earlier, Kingsby’s wife had sent her husband a telegram saying she was heading to Mexico to divorce him and marry a man named Chris Lavery.

Marlowe learns that Muriel was an alias for a woman named Mildred Havelend and that she was hiding from a tough cop, whose description fits DeGarmot.

Inside the unlocked house, he encounters Lavery's landlady, Mrs. Fallbrook, holding a gun she claims to have just found.

Before calling the police, Marlowe goes to the publishing house to confront Fromsett, interrupting a Christmas party.

Kingsby, learning that Fromsett had hired Marlowe to find Chrystal, tells her theirs will be strictly a business relationship from now on.

Kingsby receives a phone call from his wife, asking for money and, unable to find Marlowe, goes to Fromsett's apartment to ask her if she has seen the detective.

DeGarmot tracks them down, having overheard Fromsett speaking to Captain Kane and following Marlowe's trail of rice.

The "actress" credited as playing Chrystal Kingsby, "Ellay Mort", is an inside joke, as the character is never seen in the film.

He convinced MGM to buy the rights to Chandler's latest novel, The Lady in the Lake, for which the studio paid a reported $35,000.

Fisher made major changes, such as re-setting the time of the film to the Christmas holiday, and dropping all the scenes which took place at the lake.

[9] A seat was also attached to the front of the dolly for Montgomery to sit in, so that the actors could see and play off of him as filming took place.

For the fight scenes, Paul C. Vogel, the director of photography, used a modified Eyemo camera with a flexible shoulder harness.