Farewell, My Lovely

5/18/2017

www.noiroftheweek.com A few weeks ago, we talked about The Long Goodbye. Brilliant -- at least in my opinion. But purists sure disagreed. "We are fedora." film noir fans said. Well here's a neon-drenched, booze smelling, modern noir that treats Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe exactly as you would have imagined him from reading the books: Hard to argue with that clip. It's just the first few seconds of the film. I'm happy to say the film holds up to the strong open. Of course it's not as brilliant as Chinatown (released a little more than a year before this one) which dealt with larger issues. In fact it seems downright old fashioned compared side by side. But it's a great film -- and not done with a wink like so many other Chanderesque films of that time. Really. You'd

1/24/2025

Robert Mitchum quite wittily narrates as well as acts in this rather dry adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel. He's the curmudgeonly PI eking out a living off the back of familial discord and martial peccadilloes. After saving him from an hail of bullets, "Marlowe" is engaged by the monosyllabic "Moose" (Jack O'Halloran) to help him track down his missing gal "Velma". The thing is, once his investigations begin to bear fruit he discovers himself in quite a pickle. She has moved on, and up, and has no desire to be found or to have her past life paraded in front of her new husband. Moreover, en route to his solution he also finds himself embroiled in some additional machinations with "Marriott" (Anthony Zerbe) who offers him an huge $15,000 just to hold his hand at a a dodgy blackmail exch