Very Cool!!!

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Murder My Sweet (1944) may not be the best or hardest-hitting film noir, but it is certainly dripping with classic noir imagery and tropes. It has everything the modern public associates with the genre/style/whatever you think it is: a snarky and cynical private eye, a duplicitous femme fatale, lost loves, claustrophobic sets drenched in shadows, voice-over narration, bizarre villains, the works.Chandler's Marlowe stories are more about atmosphere and the main character than delivering a great plot. Murder My Sweet does well on both counts. The atmosphere is charged with malevolence, making Bay City and LA look like urban hellscapes populated by criminals and corruption. The chiaroscuro lighting dominates every scene, lending the movie a nightmarish quality that culminates in a bizarre drug-induced hallucination sequence. And then there's Dick Powell as Marlowe. Though Bogart, Montgomery, and Mitchum did well with the part, Dick Powell is the best Philip Marlowe. He's cynical, yet strangely chivalrous. He's hardboiled, yet occasionally vulnerable. He's fantastic and I wish he'd been able to play the role in other movies.The ending is a bit too optimistic for my tastes, as the gloom and dread which pervaded it are so strong, but for its style and Powell alone, I consider this film one of the great classics of noir.

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.Murder, My Sweet is considered one of the best Chandler adaptations. Glenn Erickson, in a recent review of the film, wrote, "Murder, My Sweet remains the purest version of Chandler on film, even if it all seems far too familiar now." This does seem to be the consensus, that this is a great Chandler film and one of the key film noir options out there.Although I loved the look and the casting, I did find the plot to be a little convoluted. I suppose this is not the worst, because it lends itself to repeat viewings. And, to be fair, noir does seem to work well when it is complex -- such later noir homages as "Long Goodbye" and even "Big Lebowski" are surprisingly intricate.

In terms of craftsmanship, it's hard to beat MURDER, MY SWEET: it's tight in every respect, from beginning to end. It also boasts some truly outstanding cinematography, with some of the most unique shots you're ever likely to see: Dick Powell as Marlowe, sitting at his desk, looking at his own reflection in the window, while behind him appears the man-mountain, Mike Mazurki. It's effectively a three-shot, with two clearly visible faces and the back of Powell's head. Mazurki is one of the most intimidating presences to ever lurk nearby in a film noir: he literally hauls Powell off his feet as he tries to convince him to help him keep tabs on a crooked dame. It's like a big kid, unaware of his own strength, manhandling a smaller kid. Powell's narration is priceless: "A black pool opened up under my feet. I dove in." That's Raymond Chandler, of course, but the line (delivered at least twice in the movie, if memory serves) is delivered perfectly, almost matter-of-factly, by Powell. One of the great films noir. (There's also a memorable sequence wherein Marlowe is kidnapped and force-fed drugs; his torment makes what Ray Milland goes through in THE LOST WEEKEND look like a walk in the park. This idea would be used decades later in THE FRENCH CONNECTION II, but II isn't quite as good as MURDER, MY SWEET.)

"Murder, My Sweet" is first proper adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel featuring legendary detective Philip Marlowe. Title was changed from "Farewell, My Lovely" because it sounded like another lighthearted Dick Powell musical.Speaking of Powell, I was not aware of his matinée idol image prior to doing this film. I haven't seen him in anything else, though as the director of the WWII submarine drama "The Enemy Below", he left a good impression on me. But I admit that I was skeptical. I cannot be blamed for being so because my idea of a perfect Marlowe is Bogart's portrayal of him in "The Big Sleep". I had my doubts whether Powell could match up to it. So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when it turned out that he did have it in him to match Bogart. Maybe he wasn't as outwardly tough but he definitely nailed it in the clinic scenes where he is in a drugged state and then coming out of it. I felt that he gave Marlowe a vulnerable and hence relatable edge.I don't like the novel much. It has the expected hardboiled dialogue but I could not bring myself to care about any of the characters or the mystery, unlike The Big Sleep. Many fans of the novel crib on this film's board about the changes it made to the novel but I think that at least a few of them were for the better. I liked that the role of Grayle's aged husband was enlarged. It injected some genuine emotion in the film which otherwise might have ended up being another cold exercise in mystery solving. It also suited me better that instead of Marlowe stumbling into a mystery by accident, he was expressly hired by Moose Malloy to solve it.Even if he is working on a low budget, Dmytryk employs a lot of interesting gimmicks and tricks to make the film interesting to look at. I loved the way Moose Malloy was introduced as an ominous reflection in the window. The design of the drug trip/withdrawal scene in the clinic had to be believable for it to work and it is certainly a striking feature, but my most memorable single image in the film would be the perfect match cut when Marlowe holds Marriott's driving licence in his hand and then it cuts to the same card in the hands of a detective.And before I forget, Mike Mazurki was simply awesome in his role as the soft-hearted toughie Moose Malloy. He perfectly managed to make his character look dimwitted and menacing simultaneously.