Murder, My Sweet

Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Haunted by a lovely face... hunted for another's crime!

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

Date of release
1944-12-14
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (274)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
Mystery, Drama
Director
Edward Dmytryk

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $468K
  • Based on: Farewell, My Lovely

Murder, My Sweet is a 1944 American film noir, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley. The film is based on Raymond Chandler's 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely. It was the first film to feature Chandler's primary character, the hard-boiled private detective Philip Marlowe.

Production

The rights to Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely were bought by RKO Radio Pictures for $2,000, and the novel provided the essentials of the plot for The Falcon Takes Over, released in 1942. Another of Chandler's novels had been purchased as well, but in 1944 no studio had yet used Chandler's antihero private detective Philip Marlowe as the protagonist of a film.

For Murder, My Sweet Koerner assembled a creative staff who were ready to make the move up from B-movies, specifically producer Adrian Scott and director Edward Dmytryk; for Scott, the film was his first as producer. Koerner also revitalized the career of Claire Trevor – who was making Westerns in which she had fourth or fifth billing – and intended the film to be a showcase for the actress, who played a femme fatale.

Both Shirley and Trevor tried to convince the studio that they should both play "against type", with perennial good girl Shirley cast as the femme fatale Helen, and Trevor cast as the nice girl, Ann, but their pressure did not convince the studio.

Koerner was also responsible for Dick Powell's transformation from a crooner to playing hard-boiled characters. Powell had been known in the 1930s and early 1940s for light comedies and musicals, but for ten years he had been trying to break away from that typecasting, which he felt he was too old for; he had wanted to play Fred MacMurray's part in Double Indemnity.

Powell's performance as Philip Marlowe is much debated by fans of Chandler and film noir; some think it too light and comic; while others consider it the best interpretation of Marlowe on film. Chandler himself – who at first had objected to casting Powell – said he was very fond of it, but after seeing Marlowe played by Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep, changed his allegiance to Bogart.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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