Film Noir 4

ABOVE: Dick Powell & Anne Shirley in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Raymond Chandler was a very different writer than Cornell Woolrich. Chandler favored the hard boiled school of detectives. Where Woolrich relied on taking the average joe from the light into the dark, Chandler starts with shadows that open like a flower only to reveal a deeper shade of black. That is the progression in both The Blue Dahlia and Murder, My Sweet.

Murder, My Sweet (1944) RKO

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

Screenplay by John Paxton based on the Novel, Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

1hr 35min / Not Rated

CAST: Dick Powell (Philip Marlowe), Claire Trevor (Helen Grayle/Velma Valento), Anne Shirley (Ann Grayle), Otto Kruger (Jules Amthor), Mike Mazurki (Joe ‘Moose’ Malloy), Miles Mander (Leuwen Grayle), Douglas Walton (Lindsay Marriott), Donald Douglas (Police Lt. Randall), Ralf Harolde (Dr. Sonderborg), Esther Howard (Jessie Florian), Ernie Adams (Bartender at Florian’s / uncredited)

Murder, My Sweet (1944) originally carried the title of the Chandler novel it was based on, Farewell, My Lovely. Low returns at the box office prompted the studio to change the title to Murder, My Sweet, because they felt that the public may be mistaking the film for another Dick Powell musical. Powell had made his name as a song and dance man, and rightly felt it had been played out. Wanting to be cast against type, Powell was trying to change that image. The box office picked up after the change of title. The effort paid off both at the box and in good reviews, and even Raymond Chandler has called Powell his favorite Marlowe. This film is prime noir in every sense of the word, from the script and photography, to the casting and performances.

The film begins with Roy Webb’s score (the main theme of which he recycled from his score for Stranger on the Third Floor – 1940 – with great success. Stranger on the Third Floor is regarded as the first true Noir film), and then an overhead still shot of an interrogation. The credits begin as the camera slowly moves in on the still image. At the end of the credits, the camera is flooded with the light from the lamp in the still photo, and we hear the interrogator speak as the camera pulls back and the still photo comes to life.

Philip Marlow (Dick Powell) has a bandage covering his eyes (above), and is not cooperating until Lt. Randall (Donald Douglas) arrives. When Randall enters the room, Marlow finally agrees to talk and the story begins. The beginning of Marlowe’s tale includes one of the best shots in Noir. Moose (Mike Mazurki) comes into Marlowe’s office office unannounced and we see him at the same time Marlowe does, as the neon flashes on and off outside; Moose’s reflection appears in the window (below).

Moose wants Marlowe to find a girl named Velma Valento. He’s insistent and though he adds comedy relief, there is also something menacing about his presence. They banter and seeing that the very large man is not going to be discouraged (in addition the money Moose offers), Marlowe agrees to try to find Velma. They go to the bar where she used to sing before Moose went to prison, Florian’s.

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Moose manages to get into it with the bartender and they leave not knowing anymore than when they went in, but Marlowe looks up the original owner and pays her a visit. Jessie Forian (Ester Howard) is drunk, and Marlowe feeds her whiskey while trying to get information from her about Velma. This is a classic scene with as much humor as you can get away with in a Film Noir, and yet they are both playing for keeps. All Marlowe gets here is light on his whiskey and an old photo of Velma.

Esther Howard in Murder My Sweet (1944)

It isn’t until Marlowe returns to his office once again to find another visitor that things really get off to a running start. When Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton) shows up is when the maze begins to open. Marriott wants to hire Marlowe to accompany him on a fool’s errand. He is to meet an unknown person or persons to buy back a stolen necklace. Marlowe advises against it, but accepts the money and drives Marriot to the meeting place.

Douglas Walton in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Marlowe takes him to the rendezvous point and leaves him hiding in the back seat of his car. He tells him to keep his head down as he goes.

“You sit tight, I’ll go down and have a look see.”

When he returns to the car, Marlowe is hit in the head and when he comes to, a woman is looking down at him saying, “Are you all right? What happened?” but his vision is blurry and she runs off before he can fully recover. He then finds Marriott dead in the car. Marlowe returns to his office and is greeted by yet another unannounced visitor.

: Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

ABOVE and BELOW: Anne Shirley & Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

The meeting between the Grayles and Marlowe enlightens him less about what exactly is going on than it does about Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor). She openly flirts with him once her husband retires for the evening. Even when caught on the sofa slowly moving toward Marlowe by her step-daughter she is glib, “Strange girl,” is her only comment.

Miles Mander, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Dick Powell, & Otto Kruger in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

The conversation he has with Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger) is civil but icy. Kruger is in top form as he exudes evil with a smile. Only in Hitchcocks’s Saboteur was he more sinister. Marlowe brushes by him with a hint that they’ll be seeing each other soon.

Claire Trevor, Dick Powell, Bernice-Ahi, & Anne Shirley in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Marlowe’s at home and in the middle of cleaning himself up when Helen shows up and suggests going out to dinner. Marlowe accepts and they go to the Coconut Beach club and she quickly vanishes, but Marlowe finds Ann there and she is trying to buy him off the case. Then Moose shows up and things go down hill from as he is taken to “meet someone” in true noir fashion.

1-John Indrisano, Mike-Mazurki, & Dick-Powell 2-Otto Kruger & Dick Powell 3-Ralf Harolde

Guns, pistol whipping, and even drugs and hallucinations take the main stage as the plot unwinds like a crazy three armed sweater. There is a drunk sequence in a noir called Moontide (1942) that has visuals that may have influence Murder, My Sweet and in part along with Murder, My Sweet influenced Alfred Hitchcock in the making of similar sequences in Spellbound and Vertigo. What is certain is that Salvador Dali did the design on the sequence in Moontide. Dali was also hired by Hitchcock for Spellbound. Take a look at the video’s below and let me know what you think in the comments section below.

The drunk scene in Moontide was done by Salvador Dali who was in the art department. He was the nightmare sequence designer / set designer. This was a Fritz Lang project, but Lang was taken off the picture and replaced by Archie Mayo. Mayo had a reputation for not getting along with actors and being difficult. It is safe to say that this effort would have been better if Lang had finished the project.

Dali was again in the Art Department on Hitchcock’s Spellbound, and the dream sequence was based on designs by Salvador Dali.

The sequence in Murder, My Sweet is not exactly like any of the other sequences, but like Moontide has a connection to the films that followed in the general similarity of the work. Perhaps the best of all of these is the sequence in Vertigo. I may be biased because it is one of my favorite films, but take a look and let me know what you think.

You have either seen Murder, My Sweet and know what happens next, but will want to re-watch it, or you have never seen it and your curiosity will have the DVD, Blu-Ray, or streaming ordered before you get up from your chair. Trust me, any way you view it, you will be delighted by this perfect Film Noir.

Facts, Rumors, & Hearsay

RKO realized a profit of $597,000 ($8.5 M in 2018). This was not the first time the studio had been saved by a so called B film. (See Producers & Directors Series 1 Val Lewton in F&TVR’s ARCHIVES: JULY 2018.)

As a result of the film’s success, plans to star Dick Powell in a series of musicals was abandoned and he was cast in more detective and action films.

To make Mike Mazurki even more frightening, Edward Dmytryk had the sets designed with slanted ceilings in order force the perspective. As Mazurki walked closer to the camera, an illusion on being even taller is created.

The Blue Dahlia (1946) Paramount

Directed by George Marshall

Screenplay by Raymond Chandler

1hr 36 min / Not Rated

CAST: Alan Ladd (Johnny Morrison), Veronica Lake (Joyce Harwood), William Bendix (Buzz Wanchek), Howard Da Silva (Eddie Harwood), Doris Dowling (Helen Morrison), Tom Powers (Capt. Hendrickson), Hugh Beaumont ( George Copeland), Howard Freeman (Corelli), Don Costello (Leo), Will Wright (‘Dad’ Newell), Frank Faylen (Man Recommending a Motel), and Walter Sande (Heath).

The screenplay by Raymond Chandler begins with an economical prelude that manages in short hand to lay out the personalities and issues of the three soldiers on their return from service in the South Pacific during the Second World War. Getting off a bus marked, HOLLYWOOD they go into the first bar they see. The writing and the editing work in tandem throughout the film, moving the story and building suspense with a silky grace studded with prime Noir dialogue.

Hugh Beaumont is also well cast as the fellow airman who is an attorney and a good friend. He tries to reign in the afflicted Buzz and give Johnny (Alan Ladd) breathing room as his friend faces the reality of his tragically shattered home life. Beaumont’s cool and underplayed George is a perfect fit. Beaumont appeared in several other Film Noir productions: Apology for Murder (1945), Bury Me Dead (1947), and Johnny O’Clock (1947). He and Bendix work well off of one another, Beaumont as the well adjusted and methodic attorney, and Bendix as a shell shocked and brain damaged hot head.

Johnny’s wife, Helen (Doris Dowling) hasn’t written to him for some time while he was on duty. He does not know what he is going home to, but it is worse than he could have imagined. In a heated argument, he walks out into the pouring rain not knowing what to do and meets Joyce (Veronica Lake) when she offers him a ride. Meanwhile, Helen, unable to reach her lover, Eddie Harwood, calls the number that Johnny wrote down when Buzz called him. She is looking for someone to help her find Johnny. Buzz answers the phone and promises her that he will bring Johnny back even if he has to, “…frog march him.”

Dowling gives a performance that walks a tight rope between the damaged woman that has lost a child and the person that she must have been before the tragedy. In her exchanges with Buzz, that woman is briefly exposed, but when she interacts with her husband Johnny, or her lover Eddy she can’t be that woman and she reverts to the hard, paranoid woman who killed her child. The pathos is underlined by her innate good nature. Although she has less screen time than the other characters, she makes a strong impression that underscores Johnny’s sense of loss. This woman that she can no longer be with him because she cannot forgive herself, but is at ease for a few fleeting moments in the bar with Buzz. This is my favorite scene in the film because it displays her skill as an actress and quickly illuminates her character. Having met her in the bar, Buzz is not aware that the woman he is with is Helen. He is confused when she asks him to come to her rooms. She is not aware that he has come to see her either, because they don’t introduce themselves.

He tells her he’ll be there in half an hour. We don’t see Buzz with her, but he is in the apartment when she makes the call. What we do see is Marlowe being picked up by Joyce in the rain. When we next see Buzz, he comes through the door of the apartment he and George are renting and he is soaking wet. When George asks him where he’s been, he only replies, “Out.” Next shot we see Eddie leaving Helen’s apartment in the rain. We note that house detective sees him leaving. Meanwhile, Johnny and Joyce are getting along very well. So well in fact that Joyce is having difficulty parting with her new friend. The next thing that happens is that Helen is found dead. She has been shot, and it looks bad for Buzz! This is one of the best examples of vintage Noir casting and story telling. All of the performances are noteworthy with stand outs among the supporting cast including Doris Dowling, Will Wright, and Howard Da Silva.

Facts, Rumors, & Heresay

Veronica Lake was given the part opposite Alan Ladd in part due to her petite stature of 4’11”. Since Ladd was only 5’6″, this meant easier filming because they would not have to make him look taller in their scenes together. They did however have that problem with Doris Dowling, but it was not as much of an issue with Ladd because they had fewer scenes together.

This was Raymond Chandler’s first original screenplay.

Chandler has claimed that he directed some of the scenes himself.