Directed by Paul Bogart, the film was written by Stirling Silliphant based on Chandler's 1949 novel The Little Sister.

The supporting cast includes Bruce Lee, Gayle Hunnicutt, Rita Moreno, Sharon Farrell, Carroll O'Connor and Jackie Coogan.

[3] Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe has been hired by Orfamay Quest, a young woman from Kansas, to find her brother, Orrin.

Marlowe recalls that years earlier a crime gang in Brooklyn led by mobster Sonny Steelgrave had perfected a technique for killing its enemies with an ice pick, but they agree the connection is tenuous.

She is television star Mavis Wald, and the photos are of her in a passionate rendezvous with the mobster boss Steelgrave, who has moved his operation west.

However the police are not fooled, and the irate Lieutenant in charge resolves to have Marlowe’s private detective license revoked.

Wald arrives and a heated confrontation between the women reveals that Orfamay knew about Orrin's blackmailing scheme and was expecting some money from it.

Marlowe confronts Dolores, from offstage while she is performing her nightclub act, with his suspicions that she was Orrin's original partner in the blackmail.

In March 1967 it was announced that film rights to Little Sister were purchased by the team of Katzka and Berne who had hired Stirling Silliphant to write a script; MGM would distribute.

[4] In June Katzka announced that he had also bought screen rights to The Long Goodbye and that filming on Little Sister would begin in September.

In March 1968 it was announced a film would be made of The Little Sister starring James Garner with Paul Bogart to make his debut as director.

"[12] Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote that "Stirling Silliphant's screenplay follows too many styles, and Paul Bogart's direction follows too few to make a more than casually entertaining movie.

"[13] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "a muddled disappointment.

"[14] Variety wrote, "Raymond chandler's private eye character, Philip Marlowe, is in need of better handling either producers Gabriel Katzka and Sidney Beckerman, scripter Stirling Silliphant or James Garner in title role, have provided, if he is to survive as a screen hero.

'Marlowe,' which MGM is releasing, is a plodding, unsure piece of so-called sleuthing in which Garner can never make up his mind whether to play it for comedy or hardboil.

"[16] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a tolerable detective thriller provided you haven't read any of Raymond Chandler's novels or seen Howard Hawks' film version of 'The Big Sleep.'

"[17] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Despite some crisp dialogue in Stirling Silliphant's screenplay, Chandler's novel The Little Sister suffers badly from glossy settings and modish direction ... And Marlowe himself seems a thoroughly synthetic creation—although Garner has a good line in 'cool', he has none of the heavy-lidded cynicism and crumpled charm with which Bogart made the part his own.