Bob Taylor That's the trouble with watching old movies: you are always going to compare them to others you've seen. I found Farewell, My Lovely to be inferior in almost every way to Murder My Sweet when it comes to performances. Mitchum was probably 20 years too old to be playing Marlowe; there is very little snap in his dialogues with other actors whereas Dick Powell had a wonderful blend of sarcasm and directness. Charlotte Rampling has played women in jeopardy throughout her career, but here she's playing a hard-bitten villain and she just can't rise to the demands of the part. This is a great casting flaw. Mike Mazurki was a marvellous Malloy, far and away superior to the bland O'Halloran here. Sylvia Miles supplies enough vitality to keep things going in her scenes. Art direction and music are no more than perfunctory. Noir fans should stick to the Dmytryk version from 1943; it has evocative b/w photography and a better pace.

Martin Bradley Robert Mitchum was a bit long in the tooth when he played Philip Marlowe in this deliberately artificial remake of "Farewell, My Lovely" which, by the mid-seventies, seemed incongruously like a fish out of water. Despite an excellent cast that included Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Harry Dean Stanton, an Oscar-nominated Sylvia Miles and, in his only acting role, the novelist Jim Thompson the film looked and sounded like something of a museum piece. Maybe it needed someone other than the merely workmanlike Dick Richards to breathe some life into it in the way Altman did with the vastly superior "The Long Goodbye". When set beside Polanski's "Chinatown", which appeared the following year, or even the original 1944 version of the same story, this is decidedly second-rate; a fancy dress parade of character actors in search of a story.

Dave from Ottawa Everything about this movie works just as it should, and that is pretty rare in a crime thriller. The earlier version, Murder My Sweet (1945), was the first screen incarnation of Chandler's timeless hard-boiled tough guy Marlowe, but 30 years of 're-visioning' the character put him increasingly out of touch with the times and resulted in Robert Altman's unrecognizable mumbling and fumbling Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973). Sensibly, the producers here turned the calendar back to the 1940s. Long night scenes give it all a nice noir look and threw in lots of classic noir visuals, such as slightly high angle shots early in every scene, with pools of lamplight on the ground like dissecting lamps, which have the audience looking down on the characters like specimens. Lovely. Robert Mitchum, looking world-weary but dogged, is perfectly cast as Marlowe, and the frosty Charlotte Rampling is a perfect deep frozen noir femme in the tradition of Bacall and Lake. They both perfectly inhabit the period and reel off Chandler's famous crackling dialogue like it's their natural speech. It gets almost too stylized at times, but everything works so well for the most part that the audience doesn't mind the contrivance. Marlowe belongs in the 40s and this may be a somewhat artificial version of those days, but I liked it.

Michael_Elliott Farewell, My Lovely (1975) *** (out of 4) Private eye Phillip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is hired by a goon just out of prison to track down an old flame of his. As Marlowe begins to investigate he finds himself wrapped up in murder, deceit and one mysterious character after another. This here was the third version of Raymond Chandler's novel following THE FALCON TAKES OVER and MURDER, MY SWEET. The later of those two titles is considered the best of the trio but there's no question that this one here gives it a very good run for its money. One major benefit of making this story in 1975 instead of 1944 is the fact that there wasn't any Hayes Office to deal with so this version here can stay much closer to the original novel and include some major plot points including prostitution but you also get some darker language and violence. Another major factor to the success of this version is the casting of Mitchum who even at the age here was able to be one of the toughest and baddest guys you're going meet. I think it's fair to say that Mitchum was born to play this role with that laid back attitude, the perfect voice for the narration and of course you can believe him in this seedy world. Just take a look at the opening shot of him and that very look lets you know what you're in for and you can't help but crack a smile just by the way the actor's coolness comes across. The screenplay features a lot of dialogue straight from the novel and Mitchum does a very good job with this as well including a running gag about Joe DiMaggio's hit streak. It also doesn't hurt that the supporting cast features some terrific actors including Charlotte Rampling as the femme fetale who comes onto Marlowe. Sylvia Miles is also extremely good in her part as a drunk, John Ireland really packs a punch as a detective and Harry Dean Stanton is fun as a crooked cop who is constantly going against Marlowe. We even get Joe Spinell and Sylvester Stallone playing thugs. The screenplay is pretty strong from start to finish as it does a very good job at capturing the spirit of the film noir movies from the 1940s. Director Dick Richards handles the material very well and he manages to build a very good atmosphere that helps the story. The seedy Los Angeles atmosphere is very thick and mixes perfectly well with the cast. Fans of the novel should be happy with the results here but I think everyone will agree that there was no one better for Marlowe than Robert Mitchum.