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Murder My Sweet [VHS]

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This one of my favorite movies. Years ago I rented a VHS of it and made a dupe at home. The quality was lousy but I liked it and played it often, but I learned my lession about making unauthorized copies. My daughter's puppy urinated all over the tape. This movie is so good it even survived that.

This is classic noir, with Phillip Marlowe. The plot is about stolen jade, hidden identities, blackmail, love, treachery and murder. The story is complicated, the casting is great, the photography and voice-over narration carry things along. It has style. The ending is satisfying. And the dialogue is some of the best ever written.

Powell broke through into serious roles with this film. Even in all the singing roles he had up to this movie he exuded cocky confidence, and that aspect of his personality is perfect here. As an aside, if you enjoy his singing movies, and I do, watch how he can smile naturally while singing; that's hard.

Claire Trevor, it seems to me, almost always played bruised roses (Stagecoach, Key Largo) or rotting orchids. You cared about her because she was one of life's losers, or you wanted to go to bed with her even knowing you might not wake up in the morning. The scene when we (and Marlowe) first meet her is just as good as the scene when MacMurray first meets Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.

Mike Mazurki as Moose Malloy is great, probably the best role he ever had. He was no actor, but he is effective and sympathetic as a slight pyscho who genuinely is in love; he's starring in his own version of Romeo and Velma.

One of the key ingredients in making this movie work is the dialogue. Quantities of it must have been lifted verbatim from Farewell, My Lovely. When Moose talks about Velma being "cute as lace panties" the imagery is vivid. Raymond Chandler, in my view, is the best author of private eye mysteries yet. If you haven't read him, dive in. Ross Macdonald and Hammett come close, but it's no three-way tie.

See the movie. Read the book.

The DVD transfer is first rate. There's a commentary by a fellow named Alain Silver which is adequate, and not essential to enjoying the film.

This is the movie that hooked me on "Film Noir." I first saw this on the late show while suffereing a killer flu. Even through local TV editing and enough medicine to tranquilize a circus tent, it had me sitting at attention from start to finish. It wasn't until several years later that I got to see it uncut on cable that I got the full effect. Having grown up with Bogart's hard-boiled private eye archetype, Dick Powell was a complete revelation to me. If you double-bill this with Bogart's "Big Sleep," you see at once that Powell truly IS Phillip Marlowe (even Raymond Chandler thought so), and Bogart is much better suited to portray Hammet's colder, meaner Sam Spade. Powell gives Marlowe a vulnerable cynicism as well as a touch of the "everyman," that Bogart wouldn't be able to pull off until later in his career. Powell's background in romantic musicals gives him access to a far deeper emotional range, needed to play the complex and conflicted Marlowe; his cynicism, his humour, his loyalty to his code...it's all there. Powell manages to give extra resonance to some of Chandler's throw-away similes! No wonder he claimed this as his favorite role!

The direction by Edward Dmytryk and cinematography by Harry Wild are perfect, giving the film a tight, economical yet alluring vintage "feel". Working on a tight budget, they manage to infuse it with all the seedy, chaotic topography that would serve as the touchtones for every film of this type from "Night of the Hunter" to "Blade Runner." While this isn't the first Noir film, it may well be the best.

Dick Powell makes a fine Philip Marlowe in this splendid film noir. The film is based on Raymond Chandler's "Farewell, My Lovely," which marks the second appearance of Marlowe in print. The book was actually adapted once before for an entry in the Falcon series ("The Falcon Takes Over"), which featured George Sanders. That film, however, simply adapted the plot of "Farewell, My Lovely" for the Falcon series; hence, the character is named Gay Lawrence, not Philip Marlowe. So in effect, "Murder, My Sweet" is the first screen appearance of Philip Marlowe. In addition, "The Falcon Takes Over" is a decent but lightweight thriller - not the noir classic of "Murder, My Sweet."

The plot is typically convoluted for a film noir written by Chandler. Marlowe, a somewhat down-on-his-luck private detective, is approached by Moose Malloy, a giant of a man who has just been released from the pokey and is searching for his ex-girlfriend. He reluctantly accepts the case. However, before he can make headway, Marlowe gets a second client, the effete Lindsay Marriott who wants Marlowe to accompany him on a late night pay-off. These two cases quickly become enmeshed and lead to numerous complications and murders.

"Murder, My Sweet" is first-rate film noir in every way. Director Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny, Crossfire) was one of the best noir film makers of all time, and he uses the conventions of the genre (shadows and unusual lighting, hard-boiled dialogue) with fine subtlety. The cast is also extraordinary - lead by Powell as Marlowe. Arguably, Humphrey Bogart was a more forceful Marlowe two years later in "The Big Sleep." However, Powell is convincing as the straight-shooting but somewhat desperate detective. Furthermore, he's joined by femme fatale Claire Trevor, who is always terrific in this type of hard-bitten role. Screenwriter John Paxton adapted Chandler's novel - managing to save some of the best bits, such as Marlowe's encounter with Mrs. Florian ("She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud"). All of the elements really come together for one of the finest noirs ever made, and this DVD transfer is solid.

DVD extras: The original theatrical trailer and an informational, but somewhat boring commentary by Alain Silver, who is a film producer and has written several books on film noir.

"Murder, My Sweet", released in 1944, is a taunt film noir thriller based on Raymond Chandler's novel, "Farewell, My Lovely". The story goes that the studio [RKO] changed the title so that audiences wouldn't think it was yet another Dick Powell musical. Powell, whose career was flagging, wanted a new image, and he certainly got it playing hard-boiled detective Phillip Marlowe. Two years later, Humphrey Bogart became the quintessential Marlowe in "The Big Sleep", but that doesn't change the fact that Powell is himself quite memorable.

Marlowe is hired by a playboy to accompany him in the retrieval of a jade necklace he claims was stolen from a wealthy friend of his. At the place where the exchange is to take place, Marlowe is knocked out and awakens to find the man has been murdered. Other new [and unwelcome] clients are also knocking at his door. One is a huge ex-con who is looking for his old girlfriend. Another is the daughter [Anne Shirley] of the man whose wife owned the jade necklace. The woman is Helen Grayle [Claire Trevor], a beautiful, seductive woman with a past. Marlowe, as usual, finds himself surrounded by people whose motives are questionable and often dangerous. He puts himself and others in jeopardy as he relentlessly pursues the truth.

Claire Trevor, one of Hollywood's greatest character actresses, gives a fine, edgy performance as Helen. Otto Kruger is deliciously sinister as Jules Amthor, shady underground figure and chief suspect.

The Chandler novel was remade in the 1970s using the original title. Robert Mitchum played Marlowe and the remarkable Charlotte Rampling starred as Helen Grayle. This version is more faithful to the book, but I find "Murder, my Sweet" to be a slightly better movie.

"Film Noir" was actually a term coined by the French two years after this movie was filmed. There were several film noir now classics filmed before Murder, My Sweet: Double Identity and The Maltese Falcon. Still, this one estabished innovations and precedents in full force and style to this day. The camera's use of chiaroscuro and filming the characters from a lower angle up. Boxes and shoe lifts were used to make the ex-con looking for his former girlfriend after being released from prison (excellently played by Mike Mazurki), considerably taller than the 6' tall Dick Powell.

And the lollapalooza performance by Dick Powell leaves one's mouth agape. Watching him gliding through all those former musicals, whoever would have thought he had it in him! His performance is sterling, and to prove the point, he never made another musical. From here on he embarked on a new and successful career. And we must thank the great director, Edward Dymtryk (who gives a very interesting interview at the conclusion of the film), for giving Powell the chance to play this role and having faith in him.

The story: Powell is a PI scraping for a buck in his dingy office. In comes Moose Malloy (Muzurki, a former wrestler), just out of prison, wanting to find his ex-girlfriend who was so "cute." She turns out to be anything-but-cute Claire Trevor (a ruthless, hardboiled, sex-seething beauty), married for money but up to all sorts of mischief on the side. From here it's downhill into the seedy, underworld of L.A. Powell is true to the role all the way through. Anne Shirley (the last film she ever made -- at its conclusion she married the film's producer, Adrian Scott, who was later blacklisted due to the HUAC, forcing them to move to England, after which he never produced another film) is perfect as the one fresh face in the film. And I have to mention the crispy, quipping dialogue straight out of Chandler. In fact there was a concious, successful attempt to remain true to Chandler as much as possible.

Don't miss it. It's really exciting!

The only thing that must have disappointed Raymond Chandler, who wrote the masterful detective novel "Farewell, My Lovely," on which "Murder, My Sweet" was based, was that it was made at RKO while he was under contract at Paramount two blocks away, making him unable to get involved in the screenplay. He highly praised the finished product, however, even if it was made by the competitor in the neighborhood. Not generally given to lavish praise, Chandler pronounced Dick Powell as the perfect Philip Marlowe. The film was a tour de force for Powell, a former song and dance man seeking to retool his Hollywood career in the direction of a dramatic actor. He delivers the crisp lines, many of which were taken from the pages of Chandler's book, with effortless aplomb.

Mike Mazurki, under contract to RKO, lobbied for the part. When director Edward Dmytryk would not offer it to him it was ultimately offered to the famous professional wrestler-actor by none other than studio president Charles Korner.

"It was a big opportunity for me," he genial actor once told me in an interview. "It was my first big dramatic part, a great opportunity. Dick Powell came up to me before the film started shooting and told me that we should really stick together on this one since we were in the same boat. He explained about making the transition from musicals, where he had made his mark."

Powell as Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe and Mazurki as dim-witted and homicidal ex-con Moose Malloy make film magic. Mazurki digs his ham-like hand into Powell early in the film and commands, "Find my Velma!" He is referring to the woman he loved, the dancer he had to leave when he was sent to prison.

Powell takes Mazurki's money and launches his pursuit. He eventually runs into the underworld and smooth talking con man Otto Kruger. He also encounters Claire Trevor, formerly Mazurki's Velma and now a rich man's wife with a new identity, but the same outlook as before, sociopathic. Ann Shirley plays the stepdaughter of Trevor. She loves her father and recognizes Trevor as a ruthless opportunist. In the meantime Powell and Shirley begin making music of their own, and continue making it at Fade Out.

Trevor has been likened as a femme fatale to Jane Greer in "Out of the Past" and Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity." The comparisons are apt. All three performers exude a raw and combustible sensuality as ruthless women who know what they want and do not care how they acquire it. "Murder, My Sweet" and the other two aforementioned films rate at the very top of film noir genre.

This is as classic a Noir as they get. I would recommend this to those who are just discovering this genre and want to sink their teeth into something real. This is it! Dick Powell does Marlowe better than anyone. He portrays the gritty, scruffy hard-boiled detective so true, you almost think you're watching a reality show. The storyline is somewhat hard to follow, but that's not what Noirs are really about anyway. It's about the atmosphere, the sense of danger, the grittiness, the somber, complicated characters, the wicked devious femme fatale. This film has all these elements. Watch it and enjoy!

After gaining fame by appearing in a number of musicals early in his career, actor Dick Powell (Cornered, Johnny O'Clock, Pitfall) switched gears to play one of literature's toughest mugs, Private Eye Phillip Marlowe, in Murder, My Sweet (1944), which was based off the Raymond Chandler novel "Farewell My Lovely"...incidentally, Farewell My Lovely was the original title of the film, but was later changed by the studio to Murder, My Sweet, as American audiences, used to seeing Powell in his singing routine, apparently thought the feature was another one of his musicals. Directed by Edward Dmytryk (The Devil Commands, Back to Bataan, The Caine Mutiny), the film features, along with Powell, Academy Award winner Claire Trevor (Stagecoach, Key Largo), Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables, Stella Dallas), and Otto Kruger (Saboteur). Also appearing is Miles Mander (The Picture of Dorian Gray), Donald Douglas (Gilda), Douglas Walton (Dick Tracy vs. Cueball), and wrestler turned silver screen serial thug Mike Mazurki (Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, Dick Tracy, Nightmare Alley).

As the film begins we see the police questioning a man with bandages covering his eyes, whom later we learn is Phillip Marlowe, Private Eye (Powell), to which he starts from the beginning relating a tale involving a valuable jade necklace, blackmail, and...MURDER! Seems not too long ago Marlowe was in his office one evening when a rather big mug (about the size of a Buick) named Moose Malloy (Mazurki) enters, looking for a woman (ain't we all, brother) he once knew named Velma, wanting to hire Marlowe to find her (Moose has been away for some number of years, a guest of the state if you know what I mean). Marlowe accepts the case, but is sidetracked as he's hired for a short gig as a bodyguard by a dandy weasel type named Marriott (Walton), who's attempting to recover a valuable jade necklace recently stolen from a hotsy totsy wealthy socialite named Helen Grayle (Trevor), and is supposedly meeting with the crooks to buy it back. Anyway, Marriott ends up fettucine al dead-o, while Marlowe takes a blackjack just behind the ear. After a bit of exchange with the authorities, Marlowe's visited by a young woman named Ann Grayle (Shirley), stepdaughter to Helen (seems Ann's father likes them young, as I'd say Ann and Helen couldn't be more than ten years apart), which leads to a meeting with her stepmother Helen, and Marlowe being retained to local the necklace. Helen gives Marlowe a line on a well to do psychic consultant/swindling conman named, get this, Jules Amthor (Kruger) as someone possibly involved (Marlowe heard this guy's name come up at the police station). Anyway, from this point on things get seriously complicated as the further Marlowe digs, the more punishment he receives (he's throttled, pistol whipped, drugged, and so on) which, oddly enough, only seems to encourage him to go further (he also feels some responsibility in terms of Marriott's death, as far as he was hired to protect him and he failed). Eventually the pieces begin to fall in place, leading up to a real doozy of a finale.

I haven't had a chance to see many of the films featuring the character of Philip Marlowe, but I've heard this is one of the best, and I'd be inclined to believe it after watching this movie last night. Powell does a wonderful job in the role, presenting a relatively calm, cool, and collected figure, sharp as a tack and yet underestimated by many (which tends to work to his advantage), always handy with just the appropriate glib remark, and possessing a dogged determination to see things through, no matter the dangers that arise. Some of my favorite parts involve the character's narrative, as it generally includes some of the best lines from the film, the most memorable for me being early on when Marlowe was gathering information on Velma, the woman whom Moose had asked him to find. At one point Marlowe visits a shabby, older woman whom he describes in the following manner...

"She was a charming, middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud."

I actually laughed out loud at this statement, something I'm generally not prone to do, even with comedies. Claire Trevor also comes across really well as a true femme fatale, most definitely possessing masters degrees in the fine arts of seduction and manipulation (she's the kind of woman most men wouldn't mind being used by, at least until it was too late). One element I especially liked was the complexity of the story. While I haven't read the novel that spawned this film, I did get a strong feeling in there being an effort to stay true to Chandler's original material, and not an attempt to `dumb' things down (I think often those involved with making films tend to see their patrons as slow witted noodleheads, unable or unwilling to handle labyrinthine and elaborate storylines). I have to give director Edward Dmytryk, who would find himself a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the late 1940s, a lot of credit (along with, obviously, Chandler) as no matter how screwy the plot gets, he manages to reign things in at the end, laying it all out for the viewer, but not necessarily in such a way where it seems obvious...what I mean is there's exposition throughout the film, but it's not necessarily presented as such, but more often a natural outgrowth of events on the screen. For me, this is one element that separates standard mystery thrill dramas from truly exceptional ones, the latter being the case here. I was kind of proud of myself, as there were aspects I picked up about the same time as Marlowe, but at the same time there was a lot he figured out well before I did, based on his superior and experienced intuition. Ah well, I'll never be a gumshoe...a rotten heel, perhaps, but never a gumshoe...

The picture, presented in fullscreen (1.33:1), looks very clean and clear, and the Dolby Digital mono audio comes across well. As far as extras, included is a commentary track with author/film-noir specialist Alain Silver, a rough looking theatrical trailer, and subtitles in English, Spanish, and French. If you're interested in picking up this DVD, you might want to look into purchasing the Film Noir Classics Collection, Volume 1, a most excellent DVD set, as it includes this film, along with Gun Crazy (1949) aka Deadly Is the Female, The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Out of the Past (1947), and The Set-Up (1949) which appears to cost significantly less than buying the films individually.

Cookieman108

One last thing, this film was remade and released in 1975 under the title Farewell, My Lovely, and starred Robert Mitchum and Charlotte Rampling, for those who are interested.

According to Wikipedia this film is considered to be one of the best Chandler adaptations to film as well as one of the "pre-eminent films noirs". Filmed in highly-contrasted black-and-white, Murder, My Sweet has the hallmark noir look with many shadows on screen as well as lots of threatening cage-like shapes surrounding the hero's path.

Murder, My Sweet gets started with a bang when Phillip Marlowe (Dick Powell) is being interrogated by the police as a suspect for several murders. When the lead detective asks him if he wants to make a statement he replies in typical wise-cracking fashion, "Boys tell me I did a couple of murders. Anything in it?" He then proceeds to tell the story of what happened to him, which is filmed as a long flashback with occasional voice-over comments from Marlowe. Marlowe, as usual, is sucked into a violent criminal plot by a glamorous woman who uses him and then leaves him to take the rap.

Chandler wrote the screenplay and has a fabulous way with words. His creation, Phillip Marlowe, is a sardonic detective who gets beat up a lot and is somewhat morally ambiguous. He doesn't always know exactly what is going on but he is able to follow his instincts until he unravels at least part of the convoluted crime he has been engaged to solve. Ann Shirley is the love interest and Claire Trevor plays the femme fatale. Highly recommended!

January 1945: Murder, My Sweet is released starring former movie musical crooner Dick Powell as tough detective Philip Marlowe, Claire Trevor as femme fatale Mrs. Grayle (aka Velma Valentino) and Mike Mazurki (in his first major role) as big lug-thug goofball Moose Malloy. Based on Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, this baby is the real deal when it comes to film noir. Yeah, there were others before this--The Maltese Falcon and especially, Double Indemnity with a phenomenal performance by Barbara Stanwyck.

But this is the one that put detective-based film noir on the map. The 1975 version (same title as the book) with Robert Mitchum, John Ireland, and some of the other classic film noir stalwarts is, in fact, a pretty good piece of work. But Murder, My Sweet is the ne plus ultra of film noir. The director, Edward Dmytryk, had a limited budget and so confined much of his shooting to low-lit interiors to save money. Not only that--he also has some ultra-cool sequences of poor Marlowe, having been force-fed a syringe or two of dope, hallucinating something awful. This shows the influence of German Expressionism to the max; the contrast of black and white has never been sharper, more vibrant, more startling in an American film. And dig those crazy images--multiple doors to go through trying to avoid a doc who walks through doors; larger than life images of two of the bad guys looming above, peering down at Marlowe with spooked up backlit faces; a giant syringe ready to plunge.

There's the good girl and the bad girl, sure. There's the supposedly innocent older husband of the femme fatale. There's the evil brains of the picture who loves blackmail, brutality, and backbiting. And of course there's the hard-bitten cops dogging Marlowe throughout his journey from cynical onlooker to active tough guy to sentimental joe. What's not to like?

So far the only DVD of this is being released in France. Hey, movie studios! Wake up! Time to get more film noir on DVD!

Yeah. A great piece of work; that's what I say.