Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Murder, My Sweet is one of those films that I find a little intimidating. Everyone has heard of it, especially if they are fans of film noir and especially if they are fans of Raymond Chandler. The film is based on Chandler’s novel, Farewell, My Lovely. I count myself as a Chandler fan: I have read all of his short stories and several of his novels, but it had been a long time, more than ten years, since I had read Farewell, My Lovely. I reread it and wrote about it in my last blog article, partly in preparation for seeing this wonderful film again.

Click here for my article about the novel Farewell, My Lovely.

Murder, My Sweet is considered one of the earliest films noir, but it was not placed in that category at the time of its release. French film critics invented the category after World War II, when US films were finally available to French audiences. No one in 1940 thought they were making a film noir. But Dick Powell campaigned for the role of Philip Marlowe. Powell, who was a song-and-dance man and not considered a serious actor, wanted to change that perception by playing Marlowe. Raymond Chandler had achieved some success as a writer of pulp fiction, and the story would be quite a change for Powell.

Mystery novels published in France were known as série noire. French critics adapted this term and coined film noir for the type of mystery films that they were finally able to see after the United States could distribute them after the end of World War II. Click here for more about the origins of the term film noir at Wikipedia.

The film is a lot of fun, and that is thanks to the great dialogue, the snappy lines, and Dick Powell in the lead role. Powell makes a great Philip Marlowe, the star detective in Chandler’s fiction. He is funny and genial, but he is still hard-boiled enough to be believable as a detective working in 1930s Los Angeles. His initial meeting with one of his clients, Lindsay Marriot, for example, is hilarious. When Marriott complains about Marlowe’s manner, Marlowe tells him, “Yeah, I’ve had complaints about it, but it keeps getting worse.” Later in the film, Marlowe is at the Grayle mansion standing next to a statue of an angel or a cupid (an angelic cupid?) waiting for Ann Grayle. He takes out a cigarette, strikes a match against the statue’s rear end, then does a double take when the match doesn’t light right away. And those are just two of many examples. Writing about these examples of the film’s humor doesn’t do it justice. Seeing the humor in context is a lot more fun.

The opening credits appear over an overhead shot of three men at a table or desk. It almost looks like a still shot, but the men do move. One of them is a blindfolded Philip Marlowe. The others are police officers, including Detective Nulty. During the credits, the camera slowly zooms into the reflected glare on the table. After the credits, it pulls out again to reveal that this scene is a police interrogation. Three (not two) officers are interrogating Philip Marlowe.

(This article about Murder, My Sweet contains spoilers.)

Marlowe thinks the police are trying to pin two murders on him, and they are questioning him about his version of events. Police Lieutenant Randall enters the interrogation room and tells Marlowe to start at the beginning. Marlowe says that they will have to start then with Moose Malloy, and he tells his story, his witness statement, in flashback. Most of the rest of the film is an extended flashback of Marlowe’s version of the events surrounding the murders of four men: Lindsay Marriot, Jules Amthor, Mr. Grayle, and Moose Malloy.

Moose Malloy hires Marlowe to find his girlfriend Velma Valento, and he takes Marlowe to Florian’s bar, where she used to work before Malloy served time in prison. No one in Florian’s knows anything, or will admit to knowing anything, about Velma Valento, so Malloy and Marlowe leave. Malloy does not give up hope and gives Marlowe more money to keep investigating.

Marlowe learns that Mike Florian, the former owner of Florian’s, has died, but his widow is still alive and in the phone book. He pays her a visit to question her about her husband’s business and his former employees. He gives her alcohol, which seems to loosen her tongue, but she maintains that she never heard of Velma Valento. Mrs. Florian isn’t as drunk as she lets on, however, and Marlowe discovers that she is lying. He wonders if Velma Valento doesn’t want to be found, or maybe others don’t want her to be found.

Another client, Lindsay Marriott, shows up in Marlowe’s office; Marriott is already snooping around Marlowe’s desk when Marlowe arrives. He wants to hire Marlowe to accompany him and buy back some jewels that were stolen in a holdup. Marlowe thinks the excursion is pointless because Marriott has no proof that whoever has the jewels will bring them to the meeting, but Marriott offers him $100 (a lot of money in the 1940s), so Marlowe agrees.

Marlowe drives the car, and he carries the money. (He’s driving on the right side of the car, as though he were driving in Great Britain! This is explained in the novel, but not in the film.) Marriott is killed at the meeting spot, and Marlowe is hit hard enough over the head that he blacks out: the first of three appearances of what he calls the black pool. When he comes to, someone shines a flashlight in his eyes and says, “Are you all right? What happened?” The stranger is Ann Grayle, and she runs off before Marlowe can talk to her about what just happened.

The black pool appears whenever Marlowe loses consciousness. This happens three times in the film: The first is when he is hit over the head at the meeting spot designated for the buyback of the jewels. The second is when he is pistol-whipped by Jules Amthor and then drugged to keep him compliant. The third is when Mr. Grayle fires a gun next to Marlowe’s head. The black pool allows for smooth transitions in the plot and, when Marlowe is drugged by Jules Amthor and Dr. Sonderborg, to show the drug’s effects.

Ann Grayle arrives in Marlowe’s office the day after Marriott’s murder pretending to be a reporter named Miss Allison. She claims that the police won’t talk to her, and she wants some information about the jade. Marlowe didn’t know that Marriott was paying someone specifically to get a jade necklace back, but he wants to know what Allison is doing in his office and how much she knows. He learns that she is really Ann Grayle and that the necklace belongs to her father and his wife, Helen Grayle, Ann’s stepmother.

Marlowe wants to learn more about the jade necklace, and Ann agrees to take him to her father’s home. Marlowe eventually learns that Helen Grayle, the wife and stepmother, is the link to Jules Amthor and to Moose Malloy. His two investigations—finding Velma Valento and solving Lindsay Marriott’s murder—are also linked. The rest of the film provides the clues that make all this clear to both Marlowe and the viewers.

Chandler’s plots and thus the films that are based on his books are sometimes criticized for being difficult if not impossible to follow, which is a characterization I disagree with generally. I always say that the plots of films noir are complicated, with many twists and turns, and attention to detail is almost always essential. This is especially true of Murder, My Sweet, and this time, it might be true that the plot of the film is not as tight as other films noir or the novel it is based on.

I have seen Murder, My Sweet at least eight times, but I still have not figured out, for example, how Philip Marlowe knows that Detective Nulty is casing his home and his office after he escapes from Jules Amthor’s place. He does not run into Detective Nulty or Lieutenant Randall after his escape. He sees only Moose Malloy, who helps him by stuffing him into a cab. The cab driver does not go to Marlowe’s place or to his office first before dropping him off at Ann Grayle’s apartment. And there is no indication that Lieutenant Randall assigned Detective Nulty to follow Marlowe after his first interrogation of Marlowe at the police station, with Nulty in attendance. This first interrogation takes place during the flashback, after Marlowe regains consciousness and reports Lindsay Marriott’s murder.

A lot of the dialogue in Murder, My Sweet comes straight out of Raymond Chandler’s novel. I was glad to hear some of the funny lines in the film, but I wasn’t as satisfied with the plot as it was rewritten for the film’s screenplay. The book does a much better job of tying up all the plot strands. I enjoyed the film immensely, but it doesn’t improve on Chandler. Expecting it to do so is probably expecting too much, I suppose, especially for admirers of Chandler’s work, and I am one of those admirers.

The DVD I watched came with audio commentary by historian Alain Silver, and he provides a lot of great details about the film and the novel on which it is based, including the success of all of Raymond Chandler’s publications and how the film Murder, My Sweet was a way for Dick Powell to reinvent his image after getting his start in musicals. The film changed Powell’s career and that of Claire Trevor’s. One of Silver’s points in particular struck me: Mr. Grayle is a doddering, distracted old man, someone who is representative of Chandler’s view of the nouveau riche in Los Angeles; Chandler thought that they were undeserving of their success.

This observation by Silver reminded me of the scene in which Philip Marlowe arrives at the Grayle mansion and is forced to wait in a cavernous, echoing room with a black-and-white-tiled floor. (The film is in black and white, so perhaps I am assuming the color of the tiles.) When Ann Grayle appears and is ready to bring him to meet her father and stepmother, Marlowe gets up and does a hopscotch move on the black-and-white checkerboard of a floor. It’s not an idea that originated with Chandler, but it is a nice way to show how Marlowe makes light of the Grayles and their wealth. Marlowe may not have as much money as the nouveau riche in Los Angeles, but he can play in the hallways of the rich just the same.

I almost always think the novel or the short story is better than the film adaptation. Film noir is a bit of an exception: I almost always think the film adaptation is just as good as—if not better than—the novel or short story on which it is based. For Murder, My Sweet., I think the novel and the film are on an equal footing. Chandler is a master writer of detective fiction and, as I said, it is a tall task for anyone to improve on his work. But the film is so much fun and well worth a look—if you happen to be one of the few who hasn’t seen it yet!

This article about Murder, My Sweet is my entry for “Back in Black: Another Film Noir Blogathon,” hosted by Rachel of Hamlette’s Soliloquy and Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-In on October 31 and November 1, 2026. Please visit their blogs for the list of participants and their contributions.

December 9, 1944, release date  •  Directed by Edward Dmytryk  •  Screenplay by John Paxton  •  Based on the novel Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler  •  Music by Roy Webb  •  Edited by Joseph Noriega  •  Cinematography by Harry J. Wild

Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe and the film’s narrator  •  Claire Trevor as Helen Grayle  •  Anne Shirley as Ann Grayle  •  Otto Kruger as Jules Amthor  •  Mike Mazurki as Moose Malloy  •  Miles Mander as Mr. Grayle  •  Douglas Walton as Lindsay Marriott  •  Don Douglas as Police Lieutenant Randall  •  Paul Phillips as Detective Nulty  •  Ralf Harolde as Dr. Sonderborg  •  Esther Howard as Mrs. Jessie Florian  •  John Indrisano as the chauffeur and Amthor’s henchman  •  Dewey Robinson as the new boss at Florian’s

Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures  •  Produced by RKO Radio Pictures

Farewell, My Lovely (Book) (1940)

I decided to see Murder, My Sweet (1944), a film that I have already seen several times, again because fellow Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA) members, Rachel of Hamlette’s Soliloquy and Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-In, are hosting “Back in Black: Another Film Noir Blogathon” on October 31 and November 1, 2026. I’ll be joining them with my blogathon entry about Murder, My Sweet. I enjoy the film immensely, as I do each time that I see it, but I decided this time to reread Farewell, My Lovely, the basis for the film, before seeing Murder, My Sweet once again.

It has been a long time, probably more than ten years, since I last read the novel, and I enjoyed it just as much this time. Chandler’s main character Philip Marlowe, private investigator, makes many wry observations while he trudges through the details of his investigation. In Farewell, My Lovely, he isn’t hired—that is, being paid—for a lot of the work that he is doing. But he enjoys the work, at least most of the time and in spite of the trouble and violence it brings him. And he feels an obligation to Lindsay Marriott, who did hire him (and paid him) but who died while under Marlowe’s protection.

Marlowe first becomes involved because he can’t resist finding out a little bit more about Moose Malloy, someone he spots on Central Avenue, Los Angeles, looking for his former girlfriend, Velma Valento, in a speakeasy and causing trouble. They get acquainted over drinks and Malloy’s propensity to get in trouble. Malloy decides he needs some help looking for Velma, so he hires Marlowe. Soon after, a man named Lindsay Marriott wants to hire Marlowe to make a payment for the recovery of a Fei Tsui jade necklace. Marlowe doesn’t know it at first, but Moose Malloy, Velma Valento, and Lindsay Marriott are all connected, and he will figure out how by the end, of course.

(This article about the novel Farewell, My Lovely contains spoilers.)

Along his way, Marlowe makes some wry observations, as I mentioned. They are one of the reasons the book is a joy to read, even though it was first published in 1940. For instance, Marlowe meets Anne Riordan at the scene of Marriott’s murder. When she arrives at his office to help with some additional information, Chandler describes part of their meeting as follows: “I didn’t say anything. I lit my pipe again. It makes you look thoughtful when you are not thinking” (page 91).

Marlowe gets tossed around quite a bit during his investigation of Marriott’s murder. While trying to recover from one such incident, Marlowe thinks, “I was sitting on the side of my bed in my pajamas, thinking about getting up, but not yet committed. I didn’t feel very well, but I didn’t feel as sick as I ought to, not as sick as I would feel if I had a salaried job” (pages 190–191). I found that last sentence very relatable: It is a lot easier to drag one’s sick self to a home computer or laptop than it is to drag one’s sick self to the office workstation via subway or car.

But not every aspect of his job pleases Marlowe. One has to expect that in pulp fiction, right? Early in the novel, soon after meeting Moose Malloy, Marlowe tracks down Jessie Florian, the widow of Velma Valento’s former boss at the speakeasy on Central Avenue. He goes to her home and plies her with alcohol to get her to talk, a task he feels is necessary but distasteful: “I liked getting her drunk for my own sordid purposes. . . . You find almost anything under your hand in my business, but I was beginning to be a little sick at my stomach” (page 34). Near the end of the novel, Marlowe sits in a cheap hotel room and considers his current situation while still investigating murder, a jewel heist, and police corruption: “I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room” (page 238). In spite of everything he has endured to that point, he still has the resolution to solve the case.

I enjoy reading Chandler because of his turns of phrase and his use of language, but there is no escaping that he and, by extension, his private investigator Marlowe are products of his time. In Farewell, My Lovely, almost every group one can imagine is described in stereotypical language and given demeaning characterizations: Blacks, women, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Italian Americans . . . it’s a long list. For this reason alone, I can only recommend the novel with this caveat: That modern readers keep in mind that the novel was published almost 100 years ago, before the civil rights movement, before the women’s movement, and so on.

The film adaptation, Murder, My Sweet, released just four years after the publication of the novel, avoids all of these pitfalls, which makes the film more fun for modern viewers to watch. Dick Powell plays Philip Marlowe, and he captures Marlowe’s humor and cynicism without disparaging whole groups in single sentences.

Farewell, My Lovely is the second novel that Raymond Chandler published and, like all his novels, it was based on his previously published short stories. Farewell, My Lovely is based specifically on “Try the Girl” (published January 1937 in Black Mask magazine), “Mandarin’s Jade” (November 1937 in Dime Detective), and “The Man Who Liked Dogs” (March 1936 in Blask Mask), all of which I have read. Reading pulp fiction from the 1930s and 1940s is fun because of the language and the slang, but the slang that was so commonly understood then presents a challenge for modern-day readers. Here is a brief list of some of the terms that I had to look up while reading Farewell, My Lovely:

◊ borsalino hat: Borsalino is an Italian hat manufacturer, and its brand name was probably used as a common noun in the 1930s and 1940s, much like xerox is today. You can read about the company and its legacy at Wikipedia.

◊ juju: marijuana cigarettes. Chandler spells it as “marihuana.”

◊ dunned: From Power Thesaurus, to harass, for example, by continually repeating a request

◊ fakeloo artist: a con artist.

◊ flesh peddler: in Chandler’s day (that is, the 1930s and 1940s), a theatrical agent.

◊ French fits: from Wiktionary, delirium tremens.

◊ hoopla spreader: from Merriam-Webster, someone who spreads exaggerated information.

◊ the Purple Gang: from Wikipedia, a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers composed predominantly of Jewish gangsters that operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition Era and became Detroit’s dominant criminal gang. Also known as the Sugar House Gang. See Wikipedia for more information.

◊ sneezer: From Wordnik, prison

I am a big fan of Raymond Chandler, in spite of his demeaning portrayals of some characters. I enjoy his use of language and his vivid descriptions. His plots are difficult to follow, but they are not impossible. And I enjoy that challenge, too. Like most films noir, which benefit from repeat viewings, Chandler’s novels benefit from repeat readings. For me, the pleasure comes from the language, which I always find is one of the reasons to write and to read in the first place.

Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler  •  New York: First Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition, 1992  •  Originally published in 1940

List of main characters:

Philip Marlowe  •  Moose Malloy  •  Detective Lieutenant Nulty  •  Jessie Florian  •  Mrs. Morrison, Jessie Forian’s next-door neighbor  •  Lindsay Marriott  •  Anne Riordan  •  Detective Lieutenant Carl Randall  •  Helen Grayle  •  Jules Amthor  •  Sergeant Galbraith (aka Hemingway)  •  Dr. Sonderborg  •  Laird Brunette

The image of the front cover is from the First Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition. The page references in this article refer to First Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition listed above.

I consulted the following online sources for definitions and information about slang and vocabulary:

Merriam-Webster  •  Miskatonic University Press: Twists, Slugs, and Roscoes: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang  •  Power Thesaurus  •  Thought Catalog  •  Urban Dictionary  •  Wikipedia  •  Wiktionary  •  Wordnick

Whiplash (1948)

Dane Clark and Zachary Scott are two of my noir favorites, and both star in Whiplash. I was really looking forward to seeing it, but I started dragging my feet when I learned that boxing was part of the plot. Boxing is not one of my favorite sports or film noir themes, but it was a mistake to let the boxing dissuade me. Yes, the film starts in the ring, but almost the entire film—approximately seventy-six out of ninety minutes—is an extended flashback, and it has little to do with boxers in a ring.

The film does start with Mike Angelo (played by Dane Clark) of California fighting Duke Carney of New York City at Madison Square Garden, and Mike is on the losing end. An announcer says that the middleweight challenge of the world should take fifteen rounds, but Mike is fading and almost knocked out in the fourth. While Mike recovers in his corner of the ring, he thinks about returning to a California beach, and the film turns into an extended flashback, where Mike is on that beach making a sand sculpture of two fighters, with a crowd of children looking on.

A boy calls Mike from the bluff overlooking the beach and tells him that Sam wants to talk to him. When Mike arrives in Sam’s bar and restaurant, Sam tells him that he sold one of Mike’s paintings. Mike is upset because, for him, his paintings are just studies, and they are not for sale. Mike wants to know where the purchaser, a woman, lives so that he can get the painting back. Sam tells him that she lives in Bungalow C at the Casa de Oro Hotel in Monterey.

Mike goes to Laurie’s hotel bungalow and finds the front door unlocked. He lets himself in (would he do this if he had known the purchaser was a woman?) and starts investigating some of Laurie’s possessions in her bedroom. He is so absorbed that he doesn’t notice when Laurie returns from the beach and finds him going through her things. He comes off as a creep, even though the music on the soundtrack makes the incident seem romantic. Laurie apparently thinks he is creepy, too, and starts for her phone to call the police.

Mike talks her out of making the phone call, but he can’t talk Laurie out of taking her money back and returning the painting. But now Mike doesn’t care because he likes her reason for buying it in the first place: Laurie says that she thinks the artist shows imagination. When Mike introduces himself as Mike Gordon, Laurie realizes that she is talking to the painter. She still won’t return the painting, but Mike does convince Laurie to go out on a date with him that evening.

Laurie and Mike have dinner at Sam’s bar and restaurant. She tells Mike that she used to sing professionally, in another life about which she reveals nothing. After dinner, Mike takes Laurie home and insists on coming in because he wants to talk to her. He asks her a lot of questions, and she remains evasive. She asks Mike to leave. He says that he will if she will go for a swim with him, he won’t ask any more questions. She agrees. On the beach, under the stars, Mike declares that he has already fallen in love with Laurie. She is taken aback at firsts because they barely know one another. Mike is pretty convincing, however, at least for Laurie, and she gives in to a passionate kiss.

It was hard for me to believe that Laurie would fall for Mike in the first place, or at least as quickly as she did. Mike was a man who had invaded her home and was going through her things (checking out her intimate clothing, sniffing her perfume bottle) when she came home from the beach. Why didn’t she run out and look for help? And when they arrive back at her front door after their first date, she gives Mike her key and lets him open her front door. I found that one simple act confusing, even a little alarming. Was this a custom in 1948 America? Why would a woman trust a near stranger with the key to her front door? And how much can she trust a man who proclaims his love for her after less than twenty-four hours?

Laurie not only trusts Mike; she has fallen in love with him. She comes to Sam’s place and talks with Sam about Mike. While Sam leaves to get some coffee for himself and Laurie, a man (Trask) walks in and plays a song on the jukebox. Laurie spots Trask and leaves the restaurant, seemingly in fear, and perhaps with good reason because Trask follows her out the door.

(This article about Whiplash contains spoilers.)

Mike learns from the front desk at Laurie’s hotel that she has checked out and left no message for him, no forwarding address. All he finds is a package that she wants forwarded to a Dr. Arnold Vincent in New York City. The package is wrapped, but it looks just about the same size as the painting that Laurie purchased from Sam in the restaurant. Mike becomes depressed after Laurie’s sudden departure. Sam tries to convince him to go to New York City, look for Laurie, and then go to Paris and return to painting if he cannot find her. Mike finally agrees.

In New York City, Mike is unsuccessful in finding Dr. Arnold Vincent. Like Laurie, he seems to have disappeared, too. Mike has rented a room where he paints, including one of Laurie from memory. His neighbor Chris Sherwood invites him out for an evening at the Pelican Club with her and a Texas oil man, Tex Sanders. (The oil man likes Chris; Chris likes Mike.) At the club, Chris and Mike learn that Laurie is one of the acts. Laurie is alarmed when she spots Mike in the audience. She runs off the stage when her song is done and refuses to talk to him when he comes backstage.

Trask, the stranger who showed up at Sam’s place in California, wants Mike to leave the nightclub and is willing to fight him. One of the man’s friends, Duke Carney (the prizefighter in the film’s opening sequence), also wants to fight him, but they don’t get anywhere because Mike is good with his fists. Someone named Costello finally comes up behind Mike and knocks him out with a handgun to the head. Costello and Trask bring Mike into the office of their boss, the owner of the club, Rex Durant (played by Zachary Scott), and Laurie follows them inside. Mike learns that Durant is Laurie’s husband and that he is confined to a wheelchair.

After Durant learns how Mike handled himself with Trask and Carney, he wants to know if Mike is interested in fighting professionally because he wants another fighter to win for him in the ring once again. Durant was once a prizefighter, but an injury in the ring paralyzed him. Mike refuses at first and walks out. Laurie meets Mike outside the club and warns him about getting involved with Durant. Her interference is enough to change Mike’s mind: He decides then to fight for Durant.

Mike reports the next day to Durant’s gym and learns that Dr. Arnold Vincent, the one that he had been looking for when he first arrived in New York City, is the gym’s doctor. He learns a lot now and quickly about Dr. Arnold Vincent. The doctor is Laurie’s brother, and Durant blames the doctor for his paralysis, even though he had nothing to do with Durant’s accident. And then he sees the painting that Laurie bought hanging in the doctor’s office.

Mike starts training and becomes a ruthless fighter. His drive comes from wanting revenge for his unrequited love for Laurie Durant and for what he perceives as her deception. Laurie is distressed at his transformation. She tells Mike that Rex is using him, but Mike is happy being a fighter. He doesn’t feel anything anymore, and he is happiest about that. Like Laurie’s brother, however, Mike becomes enmeshed in Durant’s schemes and convinces himself it is all for the best—until he is in the ring fighting and unaware that he was already seriously injured before the fight began.

The fight in the opening sequence may have started as a losing one for Mike, but when the long flashback is over, the fighting and the pause seem to have knocked some sense into him. The film moves back to the present with the referee’s whistle, back to Mike in his corner of the ring and the championship fight. Mike wins the championship but then collapses onto the canvas. Dr. Vincent arrives and says that Mike has been fighting with a concussion and needs to get to the hospital immediately. The two men in Laurie’s life that she cares for most—Mike and her brother—finally come to their senses and save her from a loveless and bitter marriage.

As I mentioned, it was already hard for me to believe that Laurie would fall for Mike in the first place: He invaded her home uninvited; he wants her key to let her in her own home after their date; he proclaims that he is in love with after their first date. And in New York, when Mike finally agrees to train as a fighter, he becomes crude, angry, and cruel. Laurie finally starts to wonder about Mike, but she forgives him rather quickly when he makes a turnaround after hearing about her marital situation and the predicament her brother has found himself in. Mike helps to save her from a bad marriage to Durant, but what happens when he starts being suspicious of her again for any reason at all?

If you can look past all that, maybe the attraction between these two would seem more natural. But I still had my original questions, and more questions: When Laurie found Mike (then a complete stranger) in her bedroom, why didn’t she run out and look for help? Was she afraid making a scene would attract enough attention to make the news and alert her husband? If that was the reason in California, it couldn’t have been in New York City, after she had already returned to her husband and watched Mike turn into a vicious boxer. His transformation back into a concerned lover was a bit rushed for me. The title of the film, Whiplash, could easily apply to Mike’s changing attitudes toward Laurie.

Dane Clark is one of my noir favorites, but he didn’t pull off the whiplash changes in his character Mike Gordon well enough to convince me like he convinced Laurie, although I was relieved that they reunited in the end. Zachary Scott plays a type of character for which he is most famous: a thug with a mean streak. But Scott is convincing. How many actors can be so menacing in a wheelchair?

My description may make Whiplash sound like a soap opera, but that is not true of the film. The love story between Laurie and Mike is the central theme, and it is the motivation for almost everything that Mike does. It’s true that I found it to be the weakest part of the story, but there is more to the film’s narrative than the love story. Whiplash is a film noir after all, and Zachary Scott and his henchmen have enough menace to give the film the tension that it needs. I enjoyed Whiplash in spite of all my questions about Laurie’s feelings for Mike and my reservations about boxing as a central theme.

December 24, 1948, release date  •  Directed by Lewis Seiler  •  Screenplay by Maurice Geraghty, Harriet Frank Jr., Gordon Kahn  •  Based on a story by Kenneth Earl  •  Music by William Lava, Franx Waxman  •  Edited by Frank Magee  •  Cinematography by Peverell Marley

Dane Clark as Michael Gordon  •  Alexis Smith as Laurie Rogers  •  Zachary Scott as Rex Durant  •  Eve Arden as Chris Sherwood  •  Jeffrey Lynn as Dr. Arnold Vincent  •  S. Z. Sakall as Sam  •  Alan Hale as Terrance O’Leary  •  Douglas Kennedy as Costello  •  Ransom M. Sherman as Tex Sanders  •  Freddie Steele as Duke Carney  •  Robert Lowell as Trask  •  Don McGuire as Jimmy Harkus  •  Jimmie Dodd as Bill, the piano player  •  John Harmon as Kid McGee  •  Charles Marsh as Charlie, the hotel manager

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures  •  Produced by Warner Bros.-First National