L'ombra del passato

Phillip Marlowe is tired and resting in his office when Moose Malloy comes to visit him and hire him as a private detective to investigate his former lover, Velma, who has gone missing in the past 8 years that Moose has been in jail. Without a great deal of luck early on, Marlowe takes another case, escorting a Mr Marriott. When Marlowe is knocked out and Marriott murdered, things begin to get more confusing. With the police suspecting him of being involved more than he is letting on, Marlowe investigates further, getting involved in other jobs for clients who want to find Moose Malloy for some reason. Murder follows murder as Marlowe finds himself right in the middle of it with only his link to Moose keeping him alive.

Having recently seen a strange telling of this story in 'The Falcon Takes Over' I decided to go back and see the most famous version. Of course this actually involves going forward in time (the Falcon did it first by almost two years) but it is certainly a step up in quality as this version is much, much better since in the first version it was used as plot fodder within an existing formula. I have not read the book but for me everything works really well here with the right mix of plot, character and atmosphere. As I have admitted before, I'm not the smartest of men on this earth and, as a result, I do get confused by some of this type of film where the twisty plot is not that well explained (The Big Sleep always has me a bit spun) and here at times I was a bit unsure of who was what, but this comes good by the end and is clear with a satisfying ending to the piece. The atmosphere is tough considering the period and is more effective for being built tough on the characters and not by just writing lots of F words into the script. Dmytryk directs really well with the time honoured shadow and use of music, the camera also moves well even if some of the shots look a bit dated (well – it has been sixty years this year you know).

The characters are well-written and convincing. Marlowe is a dead beat – cool but not so tough and together that it takes away from his status as being a downbeat. Powell is not someone who leaps to mind when I think about the noir genre but he is very good here and gets the character really spot on. Mazurki makes Malloy his own with a firm performance that shows Moose to be strong but also manipulated by the love he totally believes in. Trevor is very good, as are Shirley and Kruger. The dialogue is sharp and tough and all of them do really well with the lines and the characters they have (making them more than pigeon-holed genre clichés) but the film mostly belongs to Powell.

Overall this is a very good film and is miles better than the first filmed version of this story. The film is atmospheric and looks great; the story is not afraid to risk losing the audience and is smart but pulls it all together and didn't lose me totally at any point. The dialogue is tough and quotable and is delivered by a collection of actors giving good performances, headed up by Dick Powell, doing his best to make us think of him first when we think of this story and the character of Marlowe.

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.

The hard-boiled dialog flies faster here than eggs at Easter. Then too, practically every line out of Marlowe's (Powell) mouth is a cynical figure of speech, making the 90-minutes one of the more corrosive in the private eye canon. No need to recap the plot since I couldn't, anyway. There're so many twists and turns on who did what to whom, you may need to call in the proverbial rocket scientist. But then, I think writer Chandler said something about reality being a lot messier than usual detective fiction. Judging from this, he wasn't kidding.

Speaking of messy, catch the great Esther Howard as old lady Florian. No one was better at sloppy slatterns than the be-robed Howard, and when she says "no peeking" to Marlowe as her robe flops open, I'll bet a wave of shudders swept across theatres everywhere. At the same time, ex-song and dance man Powell shows he could do hard cases with the best of them, that is, when he wasn't jumping helplessly into another 'black pool'. And who knew hulking thug Mazurki could go from lion to lamb so quickly. It's really he who gives the film a heart.

There's some great photography and art direction from RKO's expert production team. No wonder that studio became the one of record for post-war noir. In fact, this 1944 effort signals the emerging era of noir, bringing together the private eye and a chaotic world of shadows, as it does. I especially like those final beach house scenes, perched precariously beside a dark sea of eternity.

Anyway, the movie's a fine piece of private eye noir; just don't try to figure out the plot, which is incidental, anyhow.

'Murder, My Sweet' is based on Raymond Chandler's classic detective novel 'Farewell, My Lovely'. The book was later filmed in the 1970s under its original title starring Robert Mitchum. The Mitchum version is actually more faithful, but for some reason nowhere near as entertaining. 'Murder, My Sweet' tones down some of the racial and sexual aspects of the original story (which are included in the 1970s remake), and I'm might be mistaken (it's been a while since I read it), but the Anne Shirley character appears to have been created as a potential love interest for Dick Powell. She seems to have been inspired by a similar character in 'Double Indemnity' (written by James M. Cain and filmed the same year with the help of Chandler). Dick Powell was originally a crooner and casting him as Philip Marlowe was a very strange choice at the time, but it certainly works. Personally I would have preferred to see Robert Mitchum playing Marlowe in this version, but by the 1970s he was too old for the part, and comparing the two versions Powell definitely wins. Claire Trevor is also excellent as one of the definitive noir femme fatales, and her scenes with Powell are compelling. The drug sequence is also very memorable. 'Murder, My Sweet' is one of the most entertaining detective thrillers ever made, and along with 'Double Indemnity' and 'Out Of The Past' one of the very best crime movies of the 1940s.

Private dick Phil Marlowe is hired by a "paltry, foppish man" to accompany him on a midnight assignation. What follows is a glorious piece of Chandleriana, a ganglion of a plot involving a jade necklace, a jailbird who carries a torch for a showgirl, a "big-league blonde" with a rich old husband and an eye for private eyes, and more narrative twists and turns than a Restoration comedy on acid.

Will Moose be reunited with Velma? Who's the brunette in the gulch? What is Anthor's precise relationship with Marriott? How many more times can Marlowe get slugged from behind without having his skull disintegrate?

Golden tenor Dick Powell may not be the obvious choice to play Marlowe, but in fact he turns in THE definitive performance. Chandler once defined the ideal hero in one of his essays as a special man, but at the same time a man of the people. Not amazingly bright, subject to bouts of confusion and wrong-headed wilfulness, but for all that a tough, decent, dry-humoured guy who just happens to be as sexy as hell. Powell delivers.

Watch out for a remarkable dream sequence after Marlowe is forcibly injected with heroin (yes, heroin). Expressionist cinema was never as evocative as here!

All in all, the film is an example of a genre captured at its apex - "like lighting a stick of dynamite, and telling it not to go off"!