Murder, My Sweet
 | Directed by Edward Dmytryk Starring: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki RKO Radio Pictures, 1944, DVD Customer Rating: 45 reviews Recommend |
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A collection of classic film noir.
Genre: Suspense
Rating: NR
Release Date: 6-JUL-2004
Media Type: DVD
Dick Powell will forever be known as a 1930s crooner in archetypal musical comedies, but this career-changing role shows Powell at his best and remains perhaps the most faithful cinematic representation of Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled hero, Philip Marlowe, ever put on screen. In this adaptation of Farewell, My Lovely, Powell's cynical, smart-talking private eye is hired by a dim ex-con (pug-nosed Mike Mazurki) to find his girl Velma, and by the prissy stooge of a blackmail victim to babysit him during a handoff. The meeting ends with the stooge's death, and Marlowe is immediately engaged by the owner of some jewels, the wily Mrs. Grayle (Claire Trevor), to recover them. As Marlowe navigates the dark, dangerous world of wartime L.A., splitting his search between high-society haunts and the cheap, smoky bars and flophouses of the inner city, he turns up one too many stones, winds up on the wrong end of a fist, and wakes up to a drug-induced nightmare that director Edward Dmytryk delivers with a mixture of surreal symbolism and sinister expressionism. Powell delivers screenwriter John Paxton's snappy lines and droll asides with hard-boiled cynicism, like someone not quite as tough as he talks; but it's Powell's innate vulnerability that makes this reluctant saint of the city so compelling. Dmytryk's shadowy style creates a visual equivalent to the web of intrigue Marlowe navigates, an almost perpetual world of night. One of the first great films noir and an often-overlooked detective-movie classic. — Sean Axmaker
Title: Murder, My Sweet
Sales Rank: 39519 in DVD
Actor: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Studio: RKO Radio Pictures, 2004-07-06, Theatrical Release: 1944-12-09
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 1.33:1
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 95 minutes
Item Dimensions: 0.25 pounds
Package Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches, 0.18 pounds
- The best Marlowe, bar none.
- Bogart is great, no doubt, but if you are a true fan of noir fiction, and you've got Philip Marlowe deep in your soul, you know that no one plays the role better than Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet. Under the wisecracks, a heart that bleeds.
The story is a compilation of several of Chandler's works, so don't expect a true-to-novel storyline, but it serves… More reviews
- Top Flite Film Noir
- Great viewing. Dick Powell goes from crooner to hard boiled privare dick. He's much better as a private dick. Good supporting cast Mike Mazurki is perfect.Otto Kruger is evil itself. film noir at its best. More reviews
- Spot On
- A very good realisation of Raymond Chandler's novel. So good that it makes the Robert Mitchum version pale in comparison.Sometimes Black and white works best!. More reviews
- "You shouldn't kiss a girl when you're wearing that gun... leaves a bruise"
- Filled with tart one-liners and sharp performances, MURDER, MY SWEET (aka "Farewell, My Lovely") is a good example of just how sublime film noir could be with the RKO Studios. Most people tend to regard Warner Brothers as the house of choice when it came to noir, but RKO cranked out some real doozies, too.
Dick Powell forever shed his… More reviews
- Noir with an endearing sense of nerdiness.
- As far as film noir goes, this is it. The contradiction of Raymond Chandler's gritty gumshoe Philip Marlowe comes across at the hands of Dick Powell far more easily than it did with either Bogart or Mitchum (who was in a remake of this film, years later). Powell's performance of the detective is lighter than others, and though he certainly doesn't evoke the feelings… More reviews
