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Thanks for the memories!

Boring

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

What a great film! I love the snappy lines of film noir and this film did not disappoint :) It got a little convoluted in one part but overall held together pretty well.

By contrast with 1973's extremely disappointing "The Long Goodbye", directed by Robert Altman, 1975's "Farewell, My Lovely" had both movie critics and Marlowe fans rejoicing. The direction reveled in atmospheric ambiance, while the acting from stars to bit-players pegged close to perfection. In the lead role, Robert Mitchum made a surprisingly persuasive fist of a sardonic, world-weary Marlowe, a-drift in realistically tawdry 1940's art deco sets. In fact, Mitchum proved so believably charismatic in the part, that director Michael Winner signed him to reprise his impersonation in a re-make of "The Big Sleep" (1978). (Available on an excellent 10/10 Lions Gate DVD).

The other night I watched the 1975 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1941 novel, Farewell, My Lovely. I found it to be very disappointing and was surprised at how poorly acted and directed it was. Admittedly, Chandler's novels are difficult to adapt to the screen. Their plots are often extremely complicated and too often there are too many loose ends left hanging at the end of the novel. But this 1975 adaptation is hampered by bad acting, poor casting, questionable story line changes, and a cliché-ridden, made for TV- movie soundtrack. In truth, the film is not really "neo-noir" but a Hollywood manufactured "nostalgic-noir" that occasionally turns out to be a campy version of the original and too often seems like a parody of the noir genre. First of all, with the exception of Mitchum, the acting is somewhat predictable and wooden. Mitchum is one of the greatest noir actors of all time and to hear his narration throughout the film is a real treat. His voice was made to bring to life Chandler's words on the page. But it is painful to see that Mitchum is clearly too old for the part of Phillip Marlow. It is one thing for Marlowe to look world weary but to look almost haggard and flabby with age is too depressing. It is obvious that Mitchum's appearance in the role is simply meant to be a nostalgia trip for all his fans who remember better days. Jack O'Halloran as Moose Malloy is one of the most wooden actors you will ever see on the screen. He is never able to bring about the sense of tension between danger and humor that inhabits his character. As a result, it is hard to understand why Marlow feels sympathetic towards him. Just because O'Halloran was a heavyweight prizefighter at one time and has the correct physical characteristics doesn't necessarily make him convincing in the role. These are the kind of characters that the former football player, Alex Karris, used to get during this same time period when ever any studio needed a big dumb guy. The result is the same here, bad acting. O'Halloran's acting ability is so limited that he often comes across as an imitation of Lurch in the 1960's sitcom, The Adams Family. Sylvia Miles as Jessie Florian is a very good actress but unfortunately she is miscast as the aging and spent alcoholic. In the mid-1970's when this film was made she seems too young for the part and doesn't really have the wasted and desperate look that is so convincingly described in the book. The character of Detective McNulty is totally transformed in the movie. In the book, he is a minor character who is portrayed as cowardly and ineffectual. But the movie combined his character with another police detective, Randall, who in the book is smart, cynical, and an even match for Marlowe's wit and imagination. It turns out the movie cannot seem to decide if the McNulty character is ineffectual or shrewd since he seems to oscillate back and forth between the two. I suspect the main reason this movie was made was an effort by Hollywood to try and exploit the success that Chinatown made when it appeared 2 years earlier. Whereas Chinatown was brilliantly directed, well written and acted, and cynically dark like the noir films of old, this version of Farewell, My Lovely seems exploitive, slick, and hopelessly phony. Nothing beats Nicolson's portrayal of world weariness at the end of Chinatown. Unfortunately, Mitchum who was such a master at playing bitter, weary protagonists early in his career, can't seem to pull it off convincingly later in his career. Perhaps he was too weary with acting by this time and didn't really have it in him anymore to make the effort. My advice is to skip this movie and, if you haven't already, go read the novel. You will get much more satisfaction out of the beauty of Chandler's language than anything you can get out of this seriously flawed film.

'Farewell, My Lovely' is the second adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1940 novel of the same name--the first being the 1944 film 'Murder, My Sweet, starring Dick Powell and Claire Trevor, which was criticized for leaving out some of the controversial parts of the text from the Chandler's novel.In the classic neo-noir 'Farewell, My Lovely', the great American actor Robert Mitchum plays Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in arguably his greatest screen performance of all time. Mitchum plays Chandler to a tee (even overshadowing Humphrey Bogart's remarkable portrayal of Chandler's private eye in The Big Sleep) and it can be said with great certainty that Mitchum though the virtue of this sublime performance cemented his place in history as the definitive face of hard-boiled fiction in cinema.As for Rampling, she gives us the quintessential femme fatale in Helen Grayle. Helen is a sight for the sore eyes but she is every bit as deadly as a black widow spider for her hapless victims.Farewell, My Lovely is an essential viewing for film noir enthusiasts as well as for the fans of Mitchum and Rampling.For more on cinema, please visit my film blog "A Potpourri of Vestiges".