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
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