Murder, My Sweet (1944) on Netflix
NR19441h 35mCrimeDramaMysteryThriller
Philip Marlowe is hired by ex-con Moose Malloy to find Velma Valento, Malloy's former girlfriend. A second job has him guarding Lindsay Marriott at a ransom exchange for stolen jewels.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.5/1016,582 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Philip Marlowe takes a job from Moose Malloy, an ex-con who wants his former girlfriend, the singer Velma Valento, found. She last worked at Florian's, but no one there remembers her. Marlowe finds Jessie Florian, the widow of the club's former owner. She keeps a photo of Velma hidden and claims Velma is dead. The next morning Lindsay Marriott hires Marlowe to stand by him during a ransom payment for stolen jewels. Ann Grayle questions Marlowe about the case, then introduces him to her father Leuwen, a wealthy collector of rare jade, and to Helen, his second wife. Jules Amthor, a psychic healer who has treated Helen and Marriott, shows interest in the necklace.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dick Powell, the singer of 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips', had to make a screen test to play detective Philip Marlowe because producer Adrian Scott, director Edward Dmytryk and Raymond Chandler all opposed casting him; he then won a multi-picture studio contract.
- In Chandler's novel, Florian's, the club where Moose Malloy first takes Marlowe, was an exclusively African-American club on Central Avenue in Los Angeles's black district; the film changed it so the club scenes and Jessie Florian's scenes would not have to be cut when it was distributed in Southern states.
- By 1944 no studio had yet used Raymond Chandler's antihero detective Philip Marlowe as a film's protagonist, so RKO studio boss Charles Koerner made Murder, My Sweet a true adaptation of Farewell, My Lovely.
- Screenwriter John Paxton followed Chandler's novel closely, but the Production Code forced some plot aspects to be underplayed, including Lindsay Marriott's homosexuality and Amthor and Sonderborg supplying drugs to the elites of Los Angeles.
- Former pro-wrestler-turned-actor Mike Mazurki had to audition for the part of Moose Malloy, and director Edward Dmytryk, who wanted a true actor, was convinced in a studio commissary discussion to give him a chance; Dick Powell helped him.
- The success of Murder, My Sweet inspired two radio series: 1947's short-lived Philip Marlow with Van Heflin, and The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, which ran from 1948 to 1951 with Gerald Mohr and was the most popular show on radio in 1949.
- Anne Shirley and Claire Trevor both tried to convince the studio to let them swap roles in Murder, My Sweet, with perennial good girl Shirley playing the femme fatale Helen and Trevor the nice girl Ann, but the studio refused.
