Murder My Sweet (1944) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)

Murder My Sweet (1944)



This adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel 'Farewell, My Lovely', renamed for the American market to prevent filmgoers mistaking it for a musical (for which Powell was already famous) has private eye Philip Marlowe hired by Moose Malloy, a petty crook just out of prison after a seven year stretch, to look for his former girlfriend, Velma, who has not been seen for the last six years. The case is tougher than Marlowe expected as his initially promising enquiries lead to a complex web of deceit involving bribery, perjury and theft, and where no one's motivation is obvious, least of all Marlowe's.



Dick Powell ... Philip Marlowe

Claire Trevor ... Mrs.Helen Grayle

Anne Shirley ... Ann Grayle

Otto Kruger ... Jules Amthor

Mike Mazurki ... Moose Malloy

Miles Mander ... Mr. Grayle

Douglas Walton ... Lindsay Marriott

Donald Douglas ... Police Lieutenant Randall (as Don Douglas)

Ralf Harolde ... Dr. Sonderborg

Esther Howard ... Jessie Florian



Director: Edward Dmytryk



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037101/
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Codecs: XVid / MP3



This is considered one of the classic film noirs ever made and some think THE film noir. In recognizing that before I had seen it, perhaps I was disappointed because I expected more.



What I found was a very confusing film, at least in the last third of the movie as everything started to be explained. It almost got ridiculous in the last 10 minutes when Dick Powell ("Philip Marlowe") explained the whole story. He talked too fast and it was next to impossible to follow. I guess I will have to view this more often to understand it better, or find someone who can explain it for my feeble brain.



The best part of the film was the cinematography, which really comes to life on the DVD. Someone did a very nice job restoring this film. That, and the general dialog by Powell, were fascinating. You could make a short book with all the wise-guy remarks made by "Marlowe" in this film - a lot of great stuff. I just wish they had made a simpler story and made it easier for the viewer to digest all the facts at the end.



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When I was a lad back in the 1950s I saw one of those Warner Brothers Busby Berkeley items on television and my father remarked that was Dick Powell. I thought he was pulling my leg, that sappy tenor singing those love songs, Dick Powell? I was used to the Powell who hosted Four Star Playhouse and acted in them every so often.



My reaction was the reverse of what the movie going public must have thought back in 1944 when Murder My Sweet was released. Here was Dick Powell, no make up, a five o'clock shadow, and a voice down an octave and very cynical and jaded as Philip Marlowe.



Raymond Chandler's private detective has been hired by two people, Gargantuan Mike Mazurki to find his missing girl friend and lovely Claire Trevor to locate a stolen jade necklace. The coincidences keep piling up and it's obvious the two cases are related, but how. That you have to watch the movie for.



Powell was some revelation as Philip Marlowe. He considered himself very lucky to finally escape typecasting as so very few in Hollywood do. It would have been nice to have been in the Oscar sweepstakes, but in 1944 no one was going to beat Bing Crosby out that year for Going My Way. Another singer/actor who escaped from musicals and lengthened his career was John Payne. I can't think of any others.



Claire Trevor also broke some casting mold here. Usually she played good time girls, but with a heart of gold. From Stagecoach, Key Largo, Honky Tonk and Man Without a Star, those were usually her type role. Here she's unredeemably bad, but she has a whole lot of men jumping through hoops for her. I don't think she was ever this bad on the screen ever again.



The mores of 1944 dictated that the film not get to specific on certain items. There were references to gay males and lesbians quite explicit that later did appear in Robert Mitchum's version in the 1970s that were exorcised here. But the spirit of Chandler's novel comes through.



I'm not sure Dick Powell is the best Philip Marlowe ever on the big and small screen. But he certainly has his champions and I wouldn't want to take sides in that debate. He's just very very good.



So good in fact that in the 1950s lots of fans were remarking, was he really ever in musicals?



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This 1944 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, had its title changed so that audiences wouldn't mistake it for a musical! One might think that this would mean that the movie was off to a bad start, especially since the chief reason for the title change was that the actor who was cast in the hard-boiled lead, Dick Powell, was best known as a singer. As things turned out, the film was a huge hit and Powell changed his screen image forever, from crooner to tough guy, and enjoyed an upturn in his career as a result. Producer Adrian Scott, director Edward Dmytryk and screenwriter John Paxton also saw their fortunes rise, but in their case the success was short-lived, as they all suffered during the Hollywood blacklist. As to the movie itself, it has become for many the definitive film noir. Produced on a tight budget on the RKO lot, it was made at the right place, the right time, at the right studio, and with the right people.



This is a movie for night owls, maybe the ultimate night owl movie, since there's scarcely any daylight in it, and when there is, the action moves sensibly indoors almost immediately, as if to avoid the glare of the sun. Night-time L.A. has never looked more seductive than here, with every bar, office, nightclub and bungalow seemingly shrouded in mystery, as if harboring secrets it's loath to reveal. Harry Wild's photography is brilliant, and while he and director Dmytryk often go for flashy, arty effects, they're always appropriate, and seem at all times the way detective Philip Marlow, who narrates the story, would want it to be told, as he's a rather glib fellow with an offbeat sense of humor. The dialogue, much of it lifted from Chandler's novel, is excellent and at times quite funny, though some of the author's best lines (such as his description of Moose Malloy as at at one point being "about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food") are absent.



The plot, concerning the attempt of the aforementioned, hulking giant, Moose Malloy, to find his old girl-friend, having just served a stretch in prison, is convoluted and hard to follow. But the tale matters less than the telling, and the way it's told is what makes the movie so effective. Chandler was not a great one for plots, as one reads his books primarily for the writing, not the stories, and Dmytryk and his associates wisely follow this aesthetic, emphasizing odd bits of business, visual and verbal, often taking the movie in strange directions, making what one normally thinks of secondary aspects of a film the main event. There's a confidence in this approach, every step of the way, as the men behind the cameras knew just what they were doing. My only serious complaint has to do with the way the character of quack psychologist Jules Amthor is written ("I'm a quack"), which ought to have been more subtle, especially with such a sterling actor as Otto Kruger playing the role.



Murder, My Sweet is not without its flaws, but it wholly succeeds where it counts: making nocturnal L.A. and its inhabitants both larger than life and dream-like. The confrontation at the beach-house near the end has a dream logic to it, with Malloy, whom we had almost forgotten about, turning up, rounding out the story with a kind of poetic justice, or rather injustice, that is devastatingly effective. Dick Powell is as far as I'm concerned the best Marlow of all, as he nicely turns his musical comedy slickness into a smart-alecky private eye. That Powell is always "on", in a way that, say, the more sincere Bogart or Ladd wouldn't be, works in the movie's favor, and while I wouldn't say that he sings his lines exactly he delivers them with a singer's precision and sense of timing. Claire Trevor's femme fatale is as good as anything Stanwyck ever did. I like the affected, upper class accent she uses, especially early on. Anne Shirley is okay as her stepdaughter. Mike Mazurki's Moose, who sets the story in motion, is a forbidding figure, turning up when one least expects him, his presence can be felt even when when he isn't there, as he spurs Marlow, and the film, on, like an ugly god.



* RKO was on the verge of bankruptcy when they signed up aging matinée idol Dick Powell to make a series of musicals for them. Powell only signed under the proviso that he could play a straight dramatic role first, so he was cast as Philip Marlowe. Attached director Edward Dmytryk was initially horrified at this casting decision.



* Powell's portrayal of Marlowe earned the approval of Raymond Chandler himself.



* Audiences initially stayed away, thinking that "Farewell My Lovely" was yet another Dick Powell musical. When the studio changed the title to "Murder My Sweet", box office receipts picked up considerably.



* Nat Pendleton is in studio records/casting call lists as a cast member, but did not appear in the film.