Dick Powell Transforms His Career with Murder, My Sweet

Dick Powell as Marlowe.

My favorite fictional detectives are the erudite, snobbish Philo Vance and the sarcastic, sly Philip Marlowe. Both have been the subject of numerous films, but with middling results. Marlowe has been played by an unusual assortment of actors that includes Humphrey Bogart, Robert Montgomery, George Montgomery, James Garner, Elliott Gould, Robert Mitchum, and Liam Neeson. Bogart captured Marlowe’s toughness. Garner projected the right amount of sarcasm. Mitchum exhibited the requisite amount of world-weariness. But none of them could compare to the cinema’s first Philip Marlowe, as portrayed by Dick Powell in Edward Dmytryk’s smashing film noir Murder, My Sweet.

Powell's performance is all the more impressive when one considers his previous films were lighthearted musicals. Indeed, Powell’s early success as a crooner stifled his acting career. (By the way, he had a pleasant voice; my Mom had several of his records.)  But Powell’s career star status was dimming when RKO signed him to a contract. He still had enough clout to pick his own films and his first RKO effort was Murder,  My Sweet. It was based on the second Marlowe novel Farewell, My Lovely—which was my father's favorite book in the series (my second fave to The Lady in Lake).

Like all of Raymond Chandler’s novels, the colorful characters and seedy, neon-lit atmosphere of 1940s Los Angeles overpower the complex plotting which intertwines two mysteries. In the first, a big homicidal lug named Moose Malloy hires Marlowe to find Velma, his former girlfriend. He hasn’t seen her for eight years and it’s been six since she wrote. Of course, Moose spent most of that time in prison--but he still pines for his sweet, little Velma and desperately wants to be with her.

Marlowe’s second case seems even more straightforward. A well-dressed ne’er-do-well named Lindsay Marriott wants Marlowe to accompany him on a midnight rendezvous to buy back a lady friend’s stolen jade necklace. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry when Marlowe is knocked unconscious and awakes to find a pummeled dead body.

Dick Powell and Claire Trevor.

Powell’s dynamic performance anchors the film, but he also benefits from some classic Chandler dialogue (often spoken in voiceover as Marlowe recounts his story to the police). When Marlowe finds a dead body, he quips: “He was just snapped—the way a pretty girl would snap a stalk of celery.” Velma’s sleazy former employer is described as “a charming, middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud.”

Edward Dmytryk was a promising director with a thin resume when he made Murder, My Sweet and he put his all into the film. The pacing is swift, the atmosphere is appropriately sordid, and the visuals are stylish (e.g., when Marlowe is knocked unconscious, a black pool swallows up the frame). I met Dmytryk when he gave a guest lecture at Indiana University in the late 1970s. He wouldn’t have mentioned Murder, My Sweet if I hadn’t asked a question about it. Most of his lecture centered on the years he was blacklisted  during the McCarthy era.

Murder, My Sweet holds up remarkably well as a classic film noir. It also marked a turning point in Powell’s career. He followed it with the compelling, brutal Cornered and established himself as a dramatic actor. He went on to be become a successful film director and a television pioneer when he co-founded Four Star Studios in the 1950s.

For the record, while Murder, My Sweet was the first Marlowe movie, the novel Farewell, My Lovely was adapted earlier as the "B" picture The Falcon Takes Over (1942). Philip Marlowe was nowhere in sight in this version. Instead, George Sanders starred as the debonair Gay Lawrence, who takes on Moose Malloy's case.

Pitfall: A Suburban, Middle-Class Film Noir

In a 2006 article for L.A. Weekly, French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier called Pitfall (1948) "a film to rank among the best, the sharpest and the most original of noirs." I'm not sure I'd rank Pitfall with the genre's finest, but it's nonetheless a highly-effective drama that breaks free of the typical film noir conventions. There are no femme fatales, no bleak streets, and no hardened criminals.

A family breakfast scene in a film noir?

Instead, the protagonist is a middle-class insurance adjuster who lives in a suburban neighborhood with his loving wife and son. The problem is that John Forbes (Dick Powell) is disenchanted with his idyllic life. He's tired of playing bridge every Thursday. He's tired of going to work at the same time every morning and getting home at the same time every evening. When his wife Sue (Jane Wyatt) informs him that his breakfast is on the table, he retorts: "Where else would it be?"

Lizabeth Scott as Mona.

Johnny's life gets turned upside down when he tries to recover property purchased with embezzled money. The recipient of the "gifts" is Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott), a pretty store model who oozes vulnerability. An afternoon visit turns into an unexpected boat ride, a dinner invitation...and more. Private detective Mac McDonald (Raymond Burr), who is already infatuated with Mona, observes her interest in Forbes. One evening when Forbes arrives home late, Mac emerges from the shadows and administers a beating. Guilt-ridden and sinking in a sea of lies, Forbes decides to end his relationship with Mona. Unfortunately, it's too much too late.

Director Andre de Toth, in an interview in the book de Toth on de Toth, noted that the women dominated the film. For the role of Mona, he said: "I did not want a fashionable Hollywood bambola to cheapen the story...I wanted a warm, sincere, vulnerable human being." Strangely enough, de Toth thought Lizabeth Scott--who played her share of husky-voiced bad girls--was perfect for the part. And he was right. She's excellent as the young woman who seems to specialize in the wrong kind of man: one who commits a crime for her; one that's uncomfortably obsessed with her; and a nice guy that's already married (though she doesn't know that initially).

While Jane Wyatt's wife is a background figure for most of the film, she has two excellent scenes in the final ten minutes. In fact, she's the driving force behind an ending that Tavernier calls "one of the strongest, the iciest and the least complacent in movies of the era."

Mac (Burr) ogles Mona as she models.

Yet, while it's the female characters that propel Pitfall, it's Raymond Burr's slimy private eye that provides the film's necessary menace. In one of the film's most disturbing scenes, he visits the fashion store where Mona works and makes her model a slinky evening gown as he leers at her. He also visits the prison to tell Mona's jealous ex-boyfriend about her dalliance with Forbes. Still, he's not responsible for bringing adultery and murder into the Forbes' household.

Wyatt in the uncompromising final scene.

That distinction belongs to no one but John Forbes. With one horrible decision, he puts his family at peril, potentially destroys his marriage, and commits an act that will haunt him forever. Ironically, Forbes complains at the beginning of Pitfall that he's "in a rut six feet deep." By the end of the film, he has placed himself into a far deeper rut, one person is buried six feet deep, and another borders on death. He has allowed the bright cheery life that he took for granted to be invaded by the invisible shadows of film noir.

Six Things to Know About Dick Powell

Powell as Rex, with Joyce Holden
as a "humanimal" who was a horse.

1. He once played a dog in a movie! In the 1951 comedy You Never Can Tell, a German Shepherd named King inherits a fortune following his eccentric owner's death--but then is swiftly murdered. The canine angel asks if he can return to Earth long enough to catch his killer and clear the innocent woman accused of the crime. King is sent back to Earth as a "humanimal"--an animal reincarnated as human—in this case, a private eye named Rex Shepherd (Dick Powell!).

Powell as Marlowe.

2. He pulled off the trickiest of career moves, going from a musical-comedy star to a dramatic actor. When he signed with RKO in the 1940s, it was on the condition that he could do more than just musicals. After losing out to Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, he was cast as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet and the rest is history.

3. Powell was a television visionary and founded Four Star Television with David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Joel McCrea (who left and was replaced by Ida Lupino). Four Star produced successful series such as Four Star Playhouse, Zane Grey Theater, Burke's Law, and The Big Valley.

A publicity still with June.

4. Dick Powell was married three times: Mildred Maund (1925-27); Joan Blondell (1936-44); and June Allyson (1945-63). When June Allyson first started dating Powell, who was thirteen years older, MGM executive Louis B. Mayer tried to dissuade her. She later asked Mayer to give her away at her wedding to Powell--and he did so.

5. Powell once played John Kennedy in a film about a presidential assassination! In The Tall Target, Powell is a Pinkerton detective named John Kennedy who learns about a plot to assassinate Lincoln. The film was based on a real-life event known as "The Baltimore Plot."

6. The last film directed by Dick Powell was The Conqueror starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The movie was shot near a nuclear test site in Utah, which many believe was contaminated with nuclear fallout. According to a 1980 People magazine article: "Of The Conqueror's 220 cast and crew members from Hollywood, an astonishing 91 have contracted cancer. Forty-six of them, including Wayne, (Susan) Hayward and Powell, have died of the disease."

Dick Powell Portrays a Man Consumed by Vengeance in the Film Noir Classic "Cornered"

Warning: This review contains plot spoilers.

This sharp, downbeat post-World War II revenge tale reteamed director Edward Dmytryk and star Dick Powell, who had scored a hit with the previous year's better-known Murder, My Sweet. That film, adapted from Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely, transformed Powell from a musical-comedy leading man into a wisecracking, cynical private detective. While that film evolved into a genre classic, the lesser-known Cornered has garnered the attention of film noir fans who recognized it a thematic predecessor to lavishly-praised movies like The Third Man.

Powell plays another world-weary character on the trail of a murderer in Cornered. As Lieutenant Laurence Gerard, he provides an intense portrait of an unstable man whose war scars and pent-up grief have eaten away the normalcy in his life. The only thing that keeps him alive is his obsession to avenge his wife's death.

The opening scenes are filled with background information. We quickly learn that pilot Gerard was shot down over France during the war. After being rescued by Resistance fighters, he married a local girl named Celeste. The couple was forced to part after 20 days of happiness--he subsequently became a prisoner of war and she was executed by a French fascist leader named Marcel Jarnac (Luther Adler).

After the war, the discharged Gerard returns to the ruins of his wife's village. Celeste's father tells Gerard that Jarnac is officially listed as deceased. But he believes that the ruthless killer, whom none of the villagers ever saw, staged his death and escaped. Gerard, his emotional emptiness temporarily replaced with vengeance, begins his relentless quest for Jarnac.

Dick Powell as Gerard.

He ingeniously tracks the "dead" man's widow to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and finds a city populated by opportunists, European castaways, war criminals, and a handful of people seeking to expose the lingering threat of fascism. This latter group tries to get Gerard to join them in exposing Jarnac, but he insists on setting his own trap. Unfortunately, Gerard's plans backfire and he finds himself at the opposite end of the fascist leader's pistol in an abandoned dock warehouse. But before Jarnac can kill his adversary, Gerard attacks him and beats him viciously. When the anti-fascist group arrives at the scene, it finds a disoriented Gerard rambling about how he could have killed Jarnac, but didn't. However, a quick examination of the body reveals that Gerard literally beat Jarnac to death with his bare hands. The anti-fascists encourage Gerard to escape, but he chooses to face criminal charges and provide the means for exposing other war criminals in Argentina.

The brutality of the ending is unexpected for an American film of the 1940s. After all, Gerard executes Jarnac without a trial by punching him repeatedly in the head. Screenwriter John Paxton tries to justify Gerard's act by showing Jarnac's ruthlessness in the same scene. After killing a former accomplice, Jarnac shoots the man six more times and remarks casually: "That face will be difficult to recognize now." Dmytryk also softens the impact of Gerard's brutality by dissolving from the beating to a shot of the emotionally-unbalanced Gerard holding his head in his hands--completely unaware of the deadly nature of his act of violence.

Writer Paxton and actor Powell create a convincing character in Gerard, although the occasional wisecracks seem more appropriate for a private eye than a revenge-minded husband. Still, for the most part, the script provides Powell with strong material. When an attractive woman shows an unsubtle interest in Gerard, he tells her about his wife: "I can't remember exactly what she looked like. War does something to your memory. You forget the way people look and remember the important things. That kind of remembering keeps you warm on cold nights."

Powell and Walter Slezak.

Powell receives excellent support from Walter Slezak, perfectly cast as Melchoir Incza, who introduces himself as a "professional guide" (though he adds: "Not a tourist guide in the strictest sense"). Slezak employs craftiness and charm to keep the true nature of his opportunistic character unknown for most of his screen time.

Cornered holds up surprisingly well today, working as both a tense revengeful tale and a reminder of the painful healing which was necessary following World War II (making it similar, in that sense, to The Third Man). It's a shame that Powell, Slezak and Dmytryk did not team up for another film. But just two years later, Dmytryk was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and branded as one of the "Hollywood Ten"--a label which caused him to flee the U.S. for Great Britain. Ironically, that same year, he received an Oscar nomination for directing Crossfire.

The Gold Diggers of 1933 Want You To Remember the Forgotten Men

In 1933 Warner Bros. made three very successful musicals; all of which were choreographed by Busby Berkeley.  I have already reviewed the two bookends, 42nd Street and Footlight Parade, so it only makes sense that I give the third (and middle one) its due: Gold Diggers of 1933. While the other two big Warner Bros. musicals of 1933 were directed by Lloyd Bacon, this one was headed by Mervyn LeRoy.

The film is based on the Avery Hopwood play, The Gold Diggers, which first appeared on Broadway in 1919. Screenwriters David Boehm and Erwin S. Gelsey adapted the story to fit the times, namely the Great Depression. If there ever was a musical about the Depression, this is it. As a matter of fact, if someone asked me who the protagonist of the film was I’d say the Depression.

It’s 1933 and times are tough everywhere, especially on Broadway. This is evidenced in the beginning of the film with the “We’re in the Money” number.  Here we find Ginger Rogers in one of the tackiest costumes ever, but also very apt for the rest of the film: the idea that chorus girls are synonymous with gold diggers. Things were great before the Depression in America and on Broadway—they were in the money! But now the Depression has set in and when you can’t pay your bills the creditors shut you down. And that’s exactly what happens to Ginger’s would-be Broadway hit. She and her four roommates are out of a job and wondering how they are going to pay the rent. Fortunately for them and their cash-starved producer (Ned Sparks) they live next door to a gifted singer and songwriter, Brad (Dick Powell), who just happens to be a millionaire.

The problem is Brad can’t be “visibly” involved with the show or his family will cut him off. When the male lead goes down with a bout of lumbago, Brad has to step in which brings publicity and the wrath of his family, who believe he is being fleeced by a gold-digging woman: namely his girlfriend Polly (Ruby Keeler). Yes, Powell and Keeler are once again romantically paired in a Warner Bros. film!!! The family sends Brad’s older brother Lawrence (Warren William) and their lawyer Fanny (Guy Kibee) to investigate and buy-off Polly. This move eventually leads to the two “rescuers” finding themselves enamored with Polly’s two other gold digging roommates, Carol (Joan Blondell) and Trixie (Aline MacMahon). In the end, the only “gold digger” who doesn’t find a rich man is Fay (Rogers).

While the story is cute, it is the musical numbers that make this a highly enjoyable film. Berkeley put together four stellar numbers: the opening “We’re in the Money,” the very racy “Pettin in the Park,” the sophisticated “Shadow Waltz,” and the topical “Remember My Forgotten Man.”

Adorned in next to nothing but a few gold coins, Ginger Rogers sings “We’re in the Money” while other chorus girls dance with giant coins. This was a memorable way to begin a film and it sets up the rest of the film well. I suppose you could say Berkley launched Rogers’ musical career with this number. Yes, she was in 42nd Street, but she wasn’t the focus of any musical numbers.

“Pettin in the Park” is one of the raciest numbers I can think of from this era. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler sing the number—Keeler also performs a stellar tap dance—while a creepy baby played by Billy Barty escapes from his stroller and harasses chorus girls. In the number a rainstorm happens, and the women go behind a screen and remove their clothes in silhouette. When they emerge they are wearing metal garments, which make it difficult for the men who want to “pet.” Thus, creepy baby finds a can opener. The number is overtly sexual and would have never been allowed only a year later when the Hays Code was put into full effect.

Powell and Keeler also sing “The Shadow Waltz.” In this number Keeler and Rogers (with a whole bevy of girls) dance around with glow-in-the-dark violins. It is visually stunning to watch, but it is not one of my favorite Berkeley numbers. Which is kind of ironic since he (and a number of the girls) almost died while making it when an earthquake hit the studio. Still, the precision in which Berkeley timed these waltzing ladies is a sight to behold.

The final number of the film is the most memorable: “Remember My Forgotten Man.” Joan Blondell sings her little heart out in this number which criticizes America for forgetting the heroes of WWI during the economic turmoil of the Depression. The number opens by parading hundreds of forgotten men across the stage as Blondell, playing a hooker, sings about the dire circumstances facing the common man. The song talks about the emasculation of men and what it not only does to them but their women as well. In my opinion, this is THE musical number of the Great Depression. The lyrics say it all:

Remember my forgotten man,
You had him cultivate the land;
He walked behind the plow,
The sweat fell from his brow,
But look at him right now!

And once, he used to love me,
I was happy then;
He used to take care of me,
Won't you bring him back again?
'Cause ever since the world began,
A woman's got to have a man;
Forgetting him, you see,
Means you're forgetting me
Like my forgotten man.

The number was inspired by the Bonus Army’s disastrous march on Washington D.C. in 1932. Over 43,000 people marched to the capitol demanding payment for WWI benefits that were promised to them in 1924. Hoover ordered the army to forcefully remove the marchers and at least two people were killed. The song is awe-inspiring and Blondell’s performance is spectacularly raw and evokes strong emotions in me every time I watch it. This number is the main reason that I watch this film every time it is shown.