IMDB 7.2
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Jack's Rating :
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A movie based on the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name, which was a remake of the 1944 movie, Murder, My Sweet (1944), which starred Dick Powell.
Robert Michuum plays Philip Marlowe, and he plays him straight, which is the strength of the movie. There are the voice-overs, the snappy, quirky over the top dialogue, but the movie never becomes camp.
Set in 1941 Los Angeles, Marlowe is hired by Moose Malloy who has just gotten out of jail and is looking for his old girlfriend, Velma, who he hasn't seen in seven years.
Marlowe finds Velma in an insane asylum. Marlowe tells Moose, but when he shows her the picture, Moose says it isn't her. Marlowe has been given some bad information.
Marlowe also begins working on a case involving a stolen necklace for a man named Marriot. Marlowe goes to an exchange to get the necklace back, and gets knocked out and Marriot ends up dead. Marlowe is now the suspect.
The cops let Marlowe go and Marlowe then meets Helen Grayle (Charlotte Rampling) who descends the stairs to meet him. Helen wants to talk to Marlowe about Marriot. Before you know it Marlowe is kissing the married Helen, but then her husband walks in.
There is a lot going on, but Marlowe is mostly concerned with DiMaggio's hitting streak.
Marlow gets knocked out at his office by a couple of hoods (including Sylvester Stallone) and brought to a brothel run by Frances Amthor. She starts knocking him around and he punches her. She then gives him a shot, which drugs him up and gives him some crazy dreams. He manages to escape and goes for Amthor.
Amthor then starts knocking a girl around for sleeping with Jonnie (Stallone), and Jonnie shoots and kills her, Marlowe never did find out what Amthor wanted him for, but DiMaggio did break the hitting streak record.
Everyone seems to be looking for Moose, but no one knows where he is. Moose then contacts Marlowe, and Marlowe brings him out to see Velma. But Moose has been set up and gunmen try to shoot him down, but Marlowe gets them first.
We then find out that Velma has married a judge, and is now really Helen Grayle. Then in true noir fashion Velma knocks off Moose, and then Marlowe has to shoot Velma.
Very faithful to the classic noirs, although it is in color. Great style, with a crazy, convoluted plot. You never really know what is going on, but like all good noir, it's really all about the style.
Roger Ebert in his review wrote: "These opening shots are so evocative of Raymond Chandler's immortal Marlowe, archtypical private eye, haunting the underbelly of Los Angeles, that if we're Chandler fans we hold our breath. Is the ambience going to be maintained, or will this be another campy rip-off? Half an hour into the movie, we relax.Farewell, My Lovely never steps wrong...in the genre itself there hasn't been anything this good since Hollywood was doing Philip Marlowe the first time around. One reason is that Dick Richards, the director, takes his material and character absolutely seriously. He is not uneasy with it, as Robert Altman was when he had Elliott Gould flirt with seriousness in The Long Goodbye. Richards doesn't hedge his bet."
Quotes:
Philip Marlowe: [voiceover] The house itself wasn't much. It was smaller than Buckingham Palace and probably had fewer windows than the Chrysler building.
Frances Amthor: I think you're a very stupid person. You look stupid, you're in a stupid business, and you're on a stupid case.
Philip Marlowe: I get it. I'm stupid.