Murder, My Sweet

A few months back I did a review of the Robert Mitchum movie Farewell, My Lovely, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler about the detective Philip Marlowe. I mentioned at the time that the book had been turned into a movie 30 years earlier with the title Murder, My Sweet. That earlier version shows up on TCM tonight (Nov. 22) at 11:45 PM, so I recently sat down to watch the movie so I could do a review here.

The story is mostly the same between the two movies, although Murder, My Sweet does a bit less in part because of the Production Code. Here, it's Dick Powell playing Philip Marlowe, and as the movie opens he's blindfolded in an investigation room of a police precinct being questioned about the things that have happened to him in the last few weeks as part of cases both he and the police have been investigating. Flash back to some time ago, and "Moose" Malloy comes to Marlowe asking for information about the whereabouts of former nightclub girl Velma Valento. Moose has just done a seven-year stretch in prison and, having been released recently, wants to find the girl he loved. She apparently doesn't love him enough to have kept writing, although her old boss at the nightclub claims she's dead.

The following morning, Marlowe receives a call from a Mr. Marriott, wanting him to work as a go-between. Marriott is paying a sort of ransom to get back a jade necklace that was stolen. He doesn't want to go alone because of the danger, and he's right to be afraid. At the rendezvous, somebody hits both of them over the head, knocking Marlowe out (and giving him the sort of concussion you'd think would make his memory an issue) and killing Marriott.

Also interested in the neckless is the Grayle family: elderly father Leuwen (Miles Mander), trophy second wife Helen (Claire Trevor), and Leuwen's adult daughter from his first marriage Ann (Ann Shirley). Ann shows up at Marlowe's plays with a phony identity trying to get information; in fact the necklace belonged to Ann's stepmother. Ann and Helen at various points in the story each want to hire Marlowe, so he's naturally unsure of which of the two to trust, or even if either of the two he can trust. And there are other shady figures here. Somebody's putting words into Moose's ear that Marlowe knows where Velma really is, and then someone who may or may not be the same person as the previous someone basically kidnaps Marlowe and drugs him up for three days.

Eventually, Marlowe is able to put everything together, although as with that other Philip Marlowe story The Big Sleep, how well everything winds up fitting together is an open issue.

Obviously, as this wasn't the first version of the story I watched, I found myself thinking about the Robert Mitchum Farewell, My Lovely as I was watching Murder, My Sweet. I think each of the films has its advantages and disadvantages. In the case of Farewell, My Lovely, having been made in the 70s works in that there's more that can be discussed, such as Velma's nightclub now serving a predominantly black clientele. There are also a few other subplots. But what works better for Murder, My Sweet is that it has a contemporary setting during World War II. Farewell, My Lovely is done as a flashback to the summer of 1941 and a lot of the time the movie has the look of something that's too Hollywood clean for a simulation of the 1940s as they really were.

Mitchum was a natural as Philip Marlowe; Dick Powell wanted the role (well, really he wanted Walter Neff in Double Indemnity) precisely because everybody thought he wasn't a natural to play a hard-boiled private detective. Powell pulls it off well, and it changed his career; for the rest of his career he was able to get meaty dramatic roles.

Both versions of Raymond Chandler's story are worth watching, and tonight's your chance to catch the Dick Powell version.