Peel off your trench coat, pour yourself a stiff whiskey, and get ready for a slick look at the dirty secrets of Deco Era Hollywood with the private dick who knows them all. HBO"s Philip Marlowe, Private Eye takes Raymond Chandler"s grittiest short stories and transforms them into stylish, atmospheric production pieces. In this installment of the three-video set, Marlowe (played to the hilt by Powers Boothe) faces two equally tangled webs of desperation and desire. "Blackmailers Don"t Shoot" has Marlowe plunging through a labyrinth of double-crosses with a fresh-faced starlet and her psychotic kidnapper at the center. The series as a whole seems to truly hit its stride in "Red Wind," as Marlowe spends a single sleepless, sweltering night roaming the back alleys and luxury apartments of a city tortured by a hot, desert wind--"the kind of wind that makes things happen...crazy things." A mysterious, Benzedrine-sniffing gunman points Marlowe toward crooked politicians, corrupt cops, and a gorgeous dame who knows more than she lets on. But is she worth taking a bullet for? Marlowe tackles the case with his usual combination of muscle and mind power--and at the end of the long night, finds both taxed to their limit. --Grant Balfour