Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Farewell, My Lovely
Directed by Dick Richards
Written by David Zelag Goodman from the novel by Raymond Chandler
1975/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Philip Marlowe: [opening lines] This past spring was the first that I felt tired and realized I was growing old. Maybe it was the rotten weather we’d had in L.A. Maybe the rotten cases I’d had. Mostly chasing a few missing husbands and then chasing their wives once I found them, in order to get paid. Or maybe it was just the plain fact that I am tired and growing old.

Robert Mitchum brings a world-weary persona and some gravitas to Chandler’s gumshoe Philip Marlowe.

The story is set in the days preceding the U.S. entry into WWII.  Philip Marlowe (Mitchum) is an aging, struggling private eye in Los Angeles.  One day, he is visited by Moose Malloy who more or less commands Marlowe to locate his girl Velma, for a fee of course.  Moose has just been released from several years in prison and is eager to reunite with Velma whom he merely describes as “as cute as lace pants”.  Marlowe and Moose visit the nightclub where she used to work.  She’s not there and the club’s ownership and clientele is now African-American.  The volatile Moose ends up killing a man, the first of many killings in this convoluted plot. Marlowe doesn’t even have a photograph to go on.

Marlowe always appears to be at or near the scene of the crime and he has Detective Nutley (John Ireland) and Billy Rolfe (Harry Dean Stanton) oh his case at all times. Meanwhile, a variety of people who don’t want Velma to be located use the double-cross and other means to get near Marlowe and do away with his snooping.The closer Marlowe gets to Velma (Charlotte Rampling), the more deadly the game becomes.  With Sylvia Miles as a drunken informant and Sylvester Stallone as a thug.

Robert Mitchum makes a fine Philip Marlowe.  The tone of this movie is quite a bit darker and more violent than the original Murder, My Sweet (1944).  Charlotte Rampling puts the fatal into femme fatale.  We see LA strictly from its seedy underbelly and Marlowe is one of the few decent characters in the film.  Richards does well in translating film noir for the 70’s.  I don’t know that the original film needed a re-make but this does make for some engrossing viewing.

Sylvia Miles was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.