Pretty Good

One of my all time favorites.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Raymond Chandler's 1940 novel "Farewell, My Lovely" has been filmed three times. The first version (from 1942) was "The Falcon Takes Over" which adapted Chandler's plot, relocated the action from Los Angeles to New York and replaced Chandler's hero Philip Marlowe with the figure of The Falcon, a gentlemanly British detective (originally created by Michael Arlen) who became the hero of a long-running series of forties B-movies. This film from 1944 was released as "Farewell, My Lovely" in the United Kingdom, but in America it is known as "Murder, My Sweet", apparently because Dick Powell had previously been better known as the star of light-hearted musicals and the studio wanted to ensure that audiences knew they would be seeing a crime drama, not a comedy. When the remake starring Robert Mitchum was made in 1975 it was released under Chandler's original title worldwide.I will refer to this film by its British title, largely because that is the one with which I am most familiar. Like most films noirs it has a particularly complex plot. It opens with Marlowe being interrogated by police about two murders, and this interrogation serves as a framework, with the story being told in flashback. We learn how Marlowe accepted two sets of apparently routine instructions which landed him in trouble. Moose Malloy, a former wrestler recently released from jail, hired him to trace his old girlfriend Velma, and he was also hired to act as bodyguard to a man paying a ransom for some stolen jewels. Marlowe finds himself caught up in a web of intrigue involving the owner of the jewels, her husband and stepdaughter, Malloy, and a sinister psychic healer.The term "film noir", literally "black film", has a double, perhaps triple, meaning. Such films were figuratively "dark" because of the "dark deeds" which make up their plots, and perhaps also in the sense that these plots are often obscure and mysterious. They were, however, also "dark" in a literal sense, because they generally included striking chiaroscuro photography, often involving scenes shot at night. Here Edward Dmytryk goes even takes this tendency to extremes, shooting almost the whole of the movie at night with virtually no daytime scenes. Later crime dramas set in the Los Angeles area, such as Polanski's "Chinatown", have emphasised the brilliant Southern California sunshine, but here the City of Angels becomes a City of Dreadful Night, with Dmytryk using (as did other noir directors such as Hawks, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Sam Fuller and Carol Reed) physical darkness as a visual metaphor for both impenetrable mystery and moral depravity.Powell's performance as Marlowe has been the subject of some controversy, coming in for both praise and criticism. My view is that he is not at all bad, considering that he had had little previous experience of this sort of film, but even so he is not really in the same class as Humphrey Bogart who was to play Marlowe in Howard Hawks's "The Big Sleep" from two years later. The best performance here is probably from Claire Trevor, something of a noir specialist, as Helen Grayle, the owner of the jewels and the glamorous second wife of a wealthy, much older man. (The jewels are the story's "McGuffin". Did Chandler, I wonder, use the name "Grayle" as a deliberate reference to the Holy Grail, perhaps the most famous McGuffin in literary history?) Mike Mazurki is also good as Moose, a man with overdeveloped muscles and an underdeveloped intellect who nevertheless retains a certain rough integrity.This film is certainly a lot better than "The Falcon Takes Over", in which George Sanders is far too laid back and insouciant, even when serious matters like murder are at stake. (Chandler's story, in any case, was not really suitable for B-movie treatment). I am unable make comparisons with the Mitchum "Farewell, My Lovely", which I have never seen. As for "The Big Sleep", Dmytryk is able to maintain the tension as well as does Hawks, and the writing is better here than in the later film, one which we tend to watch more for its atmosphere than for its plot, which is impenetrable even by noir standards. The plot of "Farewell, My Lovely" may be complex, but it never becomes incomprehensible. Although I prefer Bogart to Powell, I nevertheless think that this version of "Farewell, My Lovely" can stand comparison with "The Big Sleep". 8/10

Produced by the legendary RKO during the golden age of American film noir, Murder, My Sweet remains to this day one of the best adaptations of the adventures of Philip Marlowe.The mythical antihero Raymond Chandler had a slew of excellent adaptations to the big screen including The Big Sleep by Howard Hawks and The Private by Robert Altman. Philip Marlowe has inspired dozens of imitators and one can still find his DNA in the chronic darkness of James Ellroy. Everything is there: the smoky bars populated by exotic dancers, the femme fatale, the weary detective who is constantly beaten up after his hilarious escapades, etc. To this Dmytryk adds a few original touches straight out of German Expressionism. Humphrey Bogart will overshadow him a few years later, but Dick Powell portrays a Philip Marlowe deeply funny, always ready to deliver a good line. A memorable performance, although the actor did not necessarily look the part. Powell is accompanied by excellent supporting characters, including two femmes fatales Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley. In the role "Moose" Malloy, Mike Mazurki intimidates while managing to remain touching. As for Otto Kruger, he plays a deliciously evil villain. Scripted by John Paxton, the film is somewhat watered down compared to the Chandler novel, he nevertheless manages to bring out the very substance without too many sacrifices.Murder, My Sweet is a fine example of film noir.

Everybody lied. The first time private eye Philip Marlowe encountered somebody, good or bad, he/she was always lying. The only differences were whether the liars were protecting themselves or other people. Marlowe had the full time job of disentangling the deceptions, and finding the truth behind and within all the scheming."She was a charming middle aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink."Screenwriter John Paxton retention of Chandler's deathless first person prose in a series of voice-overs is only one of the things this movie does right to capture the authentic feel of the hard boiled crime novel. The novel itself is complex, almost too complex, but Paxton did a fine job of stripping down the story to a 99 min. running time without actually dumbing anything down. The characters remain tricky in their schemes and manipulative in their approach to each other. When everything comes revealed, the viewer is not left musing over loose plot threads.The dark shadowy world of its private eye hero is visualized nicely: visible (single) source lighting, night sequences, pools of light under street lamps, people turning switches on and off. Light becomes this awkward enemy force, as if humans are allergic to it, like cockroaches. This is the essence of film noir, and cinematographer Harry J. Wild did imaginative, professional work here. In camera effects, designed to bring out less pleasant aspects of Marlowe's world - getting sapped, beaten, drugged etc. - only serve to enhance the appeal of this.This is the sort of movie that was done well at one time, but is something of a lost art. It's a great way to spend an afternoon, kicking it old school. Enjoy.

Chandler is a tricky guy, because he always builds his stories in a deceiving way. He creates a simple thread, which at first you can very easily follow. Something about looking for some girl missing, or some old coin, or find some blackmailer. This we start doing always with the detective, usually Marlowe, as our surrogate. We know what he knows, from the facts that get to him, to his thoughts - easily transpired in the books, but many times tawdry represented in films, as off voice. But every time, the unfolding of the initially simple investigation becomes filled with contradictory events, an incredible amount of new characters, and endless possibilities for explanation of the story. We get lost. So does Marlowe. And that's the point. We find ourselves suddenly pushed around, by everybody, all our mental mechanisms of understanding the story betrayed at every moment. We fall into the black hole, like Marlowe when he gets hit in the head. As if we experienced the hallucinogenic effect of the drugs that take Marlowe's notion of time and space away.This is truly powerful writing, when you think of the concept. Not great literature in the specific qualities of literature as art, but very good narrative concept. These detective stories are never about exactly how everything happen. In the end the explanation is so complicated that it becomes impossible to make credible, or so simple that it lacks interest. This is no Agatha Christie, where the intellectual mechanics of the story is what drives you to go with it. Here what matters is the world in which the story takes place, the rules of the universe where the characters live. These are literary characters, living in a literary world of their own, with very specific rules.When you bring this powerful concepts, and mix them with film, than you have something really worthy. That's what happened when filmmakers working in Hollywood, supported by visual ideas developed in Germany 10 years before, started to use this otherwise minor literature. In 1941 we had the Maltese Falcon, the first truly developed noir film, in this narrative sense. This means that when we get to this film, 3 years later, the genre is still developing, but already totally in inscribed in the mind of the viewer. This film understands what this is all about. It is competent in how it is able to cast us into the chaos of an unexplainable world. Marlowe is a pawn, from the beginning, when he finds Moose inside his office without being able to put him out or refuse his request. Actually I find it interesting how this Marlowe is much more vulnerable to the pushing around by every character than Bogart's typical Marlowe. I suppose without Bogart on the boat, the writers were able to take liberties with the character. What we have here is not the character of Chandler's books, but it's interesting to see Marlowe as a poor manipulated fellow, permanently on the edge.The problem is actually the actor. It is very rare for me to be put off by a poor performance, but in a film like this, with the central role of the detective as our surrogate in the narrative, if the actor fails so deeply as Powell failed here, the film is seriously damaged. Bogart was always limited as an actor, but at least he had enough self-awareness to project his own unique character and carry the film with it. Not Powell, all those facial gimmicks, denounced expressions. The director doesn't help, the editing is not fair for the actors (specially the men), but that's no excuse for all the distracting elements of Powell's performance. And Anne Shirley shines much more brightly than Claire Trevor. Hard to believe the man would ignore the first one to become bewitched by the other one.My opinion: 3/5