One such picture, “Lady in the Lake,” a 1947 detective picture (adapted from a Raymond Chandler novel) directed by and starring a largely unseen (save for mirror shots) Robert Montgomery, gets a nod of recognition in the much more frenetic and fantastical “ Hardcore Henry .”
(Blink and you’ll miss a reference to that film, 1947’s Lady in the Lake.)
There's even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it nod to the gimmick's history in a poster, spotted on a bystander's wall, for Robert Montgomery's groundbreaking 1947 camera-as-protagonist noir "Lady in the Lake."
That cycle accompanied one of Hollywood’s most famous first-person flops, Robert Montgomery’s 1947 Philip Marlowe mystery Lady in the Lake, and it will almost certainly repeat itself with Hardcore Henry, a frenetic yet joyless Russian action film that takes its inspiration from videogames rather than Raymond Chandler novels.
One scene even references Robert Montgomery's Lady in the Lake, which used the first-person perspective technique all the way back in 1947.
Back in 1947, actor Robert Montgomery directed an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Lady in the Lake, and in essaying the role of detective Philip Marlowe, he had the whole picture shot through his character's POV.