Tagline: Haunted by a lovely face… hunted for another’s crime!
Murder, My Sweet movie storyline. Original release titled Farewell, My Lovely – the second screen adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s second novel of the same name, a 1940 hard-boiled tale that was a superb, complex, shadowy film noir of murder, corruption, blackmail, double-cross and double identity, with witty dialogue and cynical voice-over narration. The film opens in wartime Los Angeles, where tough yet vulnerable, blindfolded/bandaged gumshoe detective Philip Marlowe (played by 30s musical crooner Powell in a dramatic role switch) is grilled under a bright light by police interrogators.
In flashback, he tells a convoluted, bewildering tale. He was hired by recently-released, brutish, urgent ex-con Moose Malloy (Mazurki) to search for his missing ex-girlfriend/lover Velma Valento (Trevor) who sold him out eight years earlier. And then he was also commissioned as a bodyguard to accompany an effeminate gigolo Lindsay Marriott (Walton) (associated with underworld Jules Amthor (Kruger)) during a ransom payoff for stolen jewels.
When Marriott is killed and Marlowe is blackjacked unconscious (“a black pool opened up”), he becomes the prime suspect for the murder. Millionaire’s daughter Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley) reveals her interest in the case, which brings Marlowe for a visit to the Grayle mansion in Brentwood where he meets Mr. Grayle (Miles Mander) and his much younger wife Helen (Trevor again).
During his investigation, Marlowe is drugged and experiences drug-induced hallucinations and nightmares (“a crazy, coked-up dream”) when pursued through a series of identical doors by a man with a giant hypodermic needle (filled with truth serum), after being roughed up by master-crook Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger). Amthor is a blackmailer, involved in setting up rich women as targets for Marriott. The owner of the jewels – mysterious, flirtatious and slinky Helen Grayle, also hires the detective to locate the stolen jade necklace (which she later reveals is not actually stolen). Marlowe navigates through a perilous world, becoming further entangled with and threatened by despicable high- and low-class criminals.
The final showdown occurs at the Grayles’ beach house, where Helen is killed by her husband. [The final shoot-out revealed that mysterious, flirtatious, gold-digging double-identity Mrs. Helen Grayle – also known as Velma Valento, had set up numerous individuals over the theft of jade jewelry, and was indeed a murderous femme fatale.] Both Moose and Mr. Grayle also shoot and kill each other. (It is also revealed that Moose had murdered Amthor). A witness to all the killings, Ann Grayle is able to clear temporarily-blinded Marlowe of all charges – and accompanies him home in the back seat of a taxi – where they share a kiss.
Murder, My Sweet (released as Farewell, My Lovely in the United Kingdom) is a 1944 American film noir, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley. The film is based on Raymond Chandler’s 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely. Murder, My Sweet turned out to be Anne Shirley’s final film. She retired from acting in 1944 at age 26.
Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Directed by: Edward Dmytryk
Starring: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Douglas Walton, Mike Mazurki, Miles Mander, Esther Howard, Donald Douglas, Ernie Adams, Edward Biby, George Anderson, Tom Coleman
Screenplay by: John Paxton
Cinematography by: Harry J. Wild
Film Editing by: Joseph Noriega
Costume Design by: Edward Stevenson
Set Decoration by: Michael Ohrenbach, Darrell Silvera
Art Direction by: Carroll Clark, Albert S. D’Agostino
Music by: Roy Webb
Distributed by: RKO Pictures
Release Date: December 9, 1944
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