Legendary Hollywood movie star, pothead and alcoholic, Robert Mitchum plays Phillip Marlowe in this remake of Murder My Sweet, which was based on legendary alcoholic mystery writer Raymond Chandler's book Farewell My Lovely. It's a classy production with top photography, production design and a musical score that copies the tradition film noir whaling trumpet sound on the soundtrack.
The movie also stars legendary kinky actress Charlotte Rampling in the femme fatale Lauren Bacall part. Rampling was known for her performance in The Night Porter, as part of a couple engaged in a sado-masochistic relationship. That approach would probably have been a little more out there than the producers wanted to go with her role.
The screenplay, which dumbs down the plot of the book is still pretty complicated and rather hard to follow. But nobody ever read Chandler's books for their story structure. The books are a rambling mess of characters and situations made interesting by Chandler's strong ability to create good dialog and quotable lines.
Probably the best approach to a movie like this, is the Howard Hawk's version of Chandler's The Big Sleep. As Hawks worked on the movie he realized he had an extra murder victim in the story and had no idea who was killing who. Hawks said "the hell with it" and focused on Bogart and Bacall's love scenes instead, today that film is a classic.
95 minutes.
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