Here is where most of the similarity between the characters stops. The hardboiled detective as a formal type is indicative of a protaganist with sharp social skills, congeniality and a flawless demeanor. Gettis destroys this ritual. Gettis has moments when he is smooth; by in large he is a far cry from Bogart's portrayal of Marlowe. In one instance he hears a joke at the barbershop about a man learning how chinamen "Do" their wives. In the next scene Gettis is all excited to tell his associates the joke he just heard. While he tells the off color joke is the real Evelyn Mulwray , standing behind him waiting with her lawyer.
This would have never happened to Marlowe. Gattis looked like a fool.
Gettis couldn't get a one-liner right if his nose depended on it. Throughout the film Gettis is screwing up jokes or lines that were meant to be sharp and humorous. In opposition to Gettis, Marlowe is socially smooth and rather witty. You could almost say Gettis is clumsy and crass. The impression we are left with about Gettis is normalizing. Gettis loses the stature that comes with a protagonist filled with bravado. He comes off kind of plain, almost corny, a regular guy.
As a detective Gettis has done very well by himself. He has Venetian blinds in his office, wears a well-tailored white suit and seems to be wealthy from his trade. In contrast, Marlowe from the Big Sleep is barely getting by with P.I. work. It is implied that he isn't materialistic and it wouldn't out of character for him to do work .
Pro bono. Gettis is a P.I. known mostly for divorce work (catching adultery) and spying on the unsuspecting. As a protagonist he doesn't come off very ethical. Polanski didn't make a character the audience would love right off the bat. Supplying Curly with pictures of his wife's adultery in the opening scene doesn't paint Gettis into a picture of the model for ethics.
Eveylyn Mulwray is no Vivian in the Big Sleep.
