AllMovie

Smart-Aleck Kill is one of six hour-long Philip Marlowe episodes originally telecast in 1986 on the HBO cable service. Powers Boothe stars as Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's quintessential 1940s hard-boiled detective. This time he's investigating a possible murder...that occured nearly twenty years earlier. Back in the silent-film era, a famous movie idol reportedly died of narcotics addiction (shades of Wallace Reid). Marlowe is hired to find out whether or not the "official" story was part of a massive cover-up.