Murder, My Sweet

 

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title, Murder, My Sweet (1944), based on the novel Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler, employs opposing sentiments, undermining the allure of romance with the revulsion of a killing. The story is told in flashback, which is a film noir convention, as the private investigator relates the story from his perspective, which becomes the point of view of the audience, as both discover evidence at the same time. The film uses light and darkness as a motif to stress the genre’s theme of truth that is hidden under a deceptive appearance. 

 

The first shot is in a police station with a spotlight shining on an otherwise dark room, suggesting the desire to shed illumination on what happened. Private eye Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) has a bandage over his eyes (which comically undermines the name of his profession, and is also a symbol of an attempt to cover up the truth so it will not be revealed). The cops, including Lt. Randall (Donald Douglas), interrogate Marlowe about some murders. He says he was at his office at night, the time of day which fits the deceptive goings-on that occur in film noirs. Marlowe says, “There’s something about the dead silence of an office building at night. Not quite real.” The use of “dead silence” sounds ominous. His words reflect the feeling of someone who travels outside the acceptable mainstream of society. Private eyes are a good choice for these stories since they walk along the border between the legal and illegal. They possess a code of honor but aren’t completely legitimate in their tactics. And they usually work alone, which stresses their alienation. Marlowe was a policeman but left after being insubordinate, which demonstrates his independent way of behaving.

 

Thug Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki), who has the mind of a child and the body of a weightlifter, appears and then disappears in a reflection in Marlowe’s office window. He looks like a scary ghost, which fits in with Marlowe’s statement that things don’t seem “quite real.” Marlowe narrates that Malloy recruited him to find his ex-girlfriend, Velma, who he hadn’t seen (more lack of sight) in eight years. Malloy gives him some money and they go to a seedy club, Florian’s, where his girl used to work as a singer. Malloy was there before and the owner says nobody named Velma worked there since he took over the place, and he doesn’t want any trouble. Malloy starts to question a woman at the bar, and the owner and Malloy get into a one-sided fight where Malloy tosses the burly man like he was weightless. Malloy is having some cognitive issues as he doesn’t seem to remember hiring Marlowe and repeats that Florian’s doesn’t look the same. That feeling of not knowing what’s going on and things seeming unreal starts to multiply.

 

They leave the club and Malloy says that he and his girl were to be married but he was in the “caboose,” slang for a prison, (film noir stories always contain their own underworld language), which prevented the nuptials from happening. He says that Velma’s last name was Valento. He gives Marlowe more money and says he’ll be in touch. Marlowe notes the previous owner, Mike Florian, died “in the middle of a glass of beer, His wife, Jessie, finished it for him.” These kinds of funny-tough lines also are abundant in film noir dialogue. 

 

Marlowe finds out where Florian’s widow lives, and brings some whiskey with him. Jessie (Esther Howard) is a boozer and he uses it to grease the flow of information he seeks from her. Jessie points out the offering of alcohol is something a regular policeman wouldn’t do, which shows how a PI sometimes walks over to the seedy side of life. She says she doesn’t know anybody named Velma, but goes into her bedroom to get some papers to show him. Marlowe sees her hide a signed picture of the redheaded Velma, takes the photo, and confronts her about lying. She says that Velma is dead, and seems afraid when Marlowe says that Malloy will not like hearing that. She then says she doesn’t know Malloy, although she acted like she did. Lying is keeping the truth hidden, which fits in with the imagery of preventing things from being seen. After he leaves Marlowe looks in the window and sees that Jessie appears completely steady and sober (more deception), phoning someone that he likens to “making funeral arrangements for a murder not yet committed.” He apparently thinks she is tipping somebody off about what she just learned about Malloy. In his job, Marlowe sees deceptions as always suggesting the possibility of a threat. 

 

Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton), a man preoccupied with clothes and the way he smells, according to the elevator operator, waits in Marlowe’s office the following day. Marlowe is annoyed and impatient because of the man’s indirect and fussy attitude. Marriott states that he doesn’t appreciate Marlowe’s “manner.” Marlowe wittily says he’s “had complaints about it, but it keeps getting worse,” showing how impervious he is to what other people think. Marriott finally says that some jewelry was stolen from a friend and he was told he could buy it back if he goes to a secluded location. Marlowe points out that he will not be able to do anything since the thieves will probably swindle Marriott and he doesn’t need a bodyguard. But Marlowe sees it as an easy way to make a hundred dollars, so he agrees to tag along.

 

Of course the meeting is at night and it’s foggy, more images of how sinister activities occur hidden from the light of day. Someone knocks Marlowe out with a blackjack, and, using a film noir metaphor, he describes the event as a black pool opening up into which he dove. The camera illustrates his words by showing blackness flowing in from the sides, engulfing what’s visible, implying that the truth of what is happening isn’t visible. He wakes up next to the car with a woman standing over him with a flashlight asking if he’s okay. But as soon as she sees his face, she runs off. The money he was carrying to buy back the stolen goods is missing. He finds Marriott beaten to death, which makes him wonder if it was an “amateur” job, or an attempt to make it look like a clumsy murder. Marlowe doesn’t accept anything on face value, which is in keeping with the devious behavior of the people he encounters in his profession.

 

Back at the police station, the assessment is that Marlowe’s rendition of what happened seems “sillier” every time he repeats it. Marlowe angrily points out if he killed Marriott then how did he knock himself out? He also questions why he would walk five miles to tell the police what happened when he could have just left the scene and the cops wouldn’t have found the body for a very long time? The police suggest that it may be that he was being set up to take the blame and he should stay away from the criminals they have been going after with whom Marriott was involved. They make it known that someone named Jules Amthor is a person of interest and Marlowe should not investigate the man.

 

A woman shows up at Marlowe’s office but she lies about who she is (more misdirection), as she says she is a reporter and asks about the stolen jade necklace (the Hitchcock-like macguffin in the tale) that Marriott was trying to retrieve. Even the police didn’t know the type of jewelry, so Marlowe realizes she knows too much and discovers her name is Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley). Marlowe wonders about why the two cases happened at the same time and asks if she has heard of Velma Valento. She wants to know why he is involved. He states the PI code which is he was hired and he failed to protect the client. He says he’s a “small businessman in a messy business, but I like to follow through on a sale.” She says that the necklace belonged to her father (a lie), but when Marlowe says Marriott said a woman owned it, Ann switches her story, saying the necklace belongs to her stepmother. 

 

Marlowe keeps narrating, saying he went with Ann to visit her father, Leuwen Grayle (Miles Mander). (Does the character’s last name imply he and his family live a blasphemous, materialistic version of the quest for the Holy Grail?) He and his wife, Ann’s stepmother, Helen (Claire Trevor), live in an immense mansion. Marlowe, given his making a living amid the morbid, darker aspects of society, sees the place as a “mausoleum.” Helen is much younger, what would previously be called a “trophy wife,” and Marlowe is distracted by her lovely leg, which Helen notices, and attempts to slightly cover up. The boring Leuwen drones on about jade, his hobby, but does state that the necklace could be worth more than $100,000. Helen seems to be acting naive by saying she doesn’t know why she wore something so expensive out, and that it was carelessness on her part. The elderly, tired Leuwen excuses himself and Ann accompanies him.

 

Helen, the femme fatale of this tale, wants to get down to business and informs Marlowe that Marriott was only carrying eight thousand dollars, which they considered a bargain to get back the necklace. Marlowe asks who else could get close to the jewelry, and Helen says her maid, whom she says she trusts. Marlowe’s life makes him suspicious of everyone so he wonders why Helen trusts anybody. Her saying she trusts him seems strange, and possibly untrue, since she just met him. On the night the theft she had been out dancing with Marriott, and Marlowe wonders if there are other “Marriots” who take her dancing. She appears (pretending?) to be outraged by the suggestion of infidelity. She says Marriott was a “heel,” but she smiles and seems to have enjoyed his company, which implies they had an affair. Marlowe is sitting quite close to Helen on the couch, and it looks like they are sexually manipulating each other. She says that it was odd that the robbers gave her back one of her rings, and she offers her hand to Marlowe, who holds it, adding to the sexual tension. He mentions Jules Amthor and she says she met him a while back through Marriott, and believes he is “some sort of psychic consultant,” which adds to the list of suspicious characters. Ann enters the room, sees how the two are sitting close, holding hands, and quickly assumes that her stepmother is philandering again. She angrily exits. 

 

Although Helen said that Amthor (Otto Kruger) is difficult to get in touch with, the man shows up right at that moment, with Helen at least acting totally surprised. Marlowe brings up the fact that the police told him not to deal with Amthor, which of course makes Marlowe just want to know more. He arranges to interview Amthor, and as he leaves he finds Ann running off after eavesdropping at the door. More suspicious activity. He shows his scorn for such an excessive amount of money spent on the building and its odd occupants when he asks the butler to show him out of “This fun house.”

 

In contrast, the next scene has Marlowe at his modest place. He is in his undershirt when Helen sneaks in as the laundry boy goes out through the door. The operative word is “sneaks” as nothing is straightforward and honest here. She is seductive again, noting Marlowe being in good shape and saying she came by to “size” him up, a statement with a sexual double meaning. She even sits down on his bed as she talks. She looks very attractive in a fancy dress. She says she thought he could buy her a drink at a swank restaurant, and he emphasizes the difference in their class status when he says he’s “the drive-in type,” and prefers it that way. He asks about Amthor, but she says they can talk about it over the drink, and gives him his retainer fee.

 

At the upscale club, we again get a spotlight in the dark, this time revealing an Asian dancer on a stage. But it also alerts us to possible unknown threats in the surrounding darkness. Helen says she is going to “powder” her nose, which the astute Marlowe says she doesn’t need to do. She leaves, and Marlowe is guided to a table where Ann sits. She says that Helen probably already left and Marlowe has been sidetracked (more appearances being deceiving). Ann says she’ll double what Helen was paying him to stay away from her stepmother and forget the whole case. So, there is something that Ann wants to hide, or metaphorically to stop from being brought out of the shadows into the light to be observed. 

 

While Marlowe scrutinizes Ann, trying to figure out what is going on, he sees Malloy at the bar, who signals to him to step outside. Malloy wants Marlowe to leave Ann and go with him “to meet a guy,” an unrevealing request. When Marlowe goes back to the table, Ann is now gone, imitating Helen’s disappearing act. She leaves him a coaster that says she is still offering him a deal and leaves contact information. 

 

Marlowe goes with Malloy and a chauffeur drives them to an expensive apartment building. But Marlowe, again stressing the theme of openness versus covertness, says he usually goes through the front door. Instead the men take him by way of the underground (hidden?) elevator. They remove his gun and escort him to a luxurious place that belongs to Amthor. So we now know how the two cases are related, since Malloy definitely works for Amthor, which was another hidden fact. Marlowe says that he thinks Amthor hired the sophisticated Marriott to get close to rich women, urge them to buy expensive things, and then steal from them. Only this time things went wrong, and maybe Marriott hired Marlowe to protect him so Marriott could keep the jade necklace. Malloy bursts in and wants to know where Velma is. Marlowe tries to tell the thug that Amthor is looking for the jewelry, not Velma, and is just using Malloy (another scam). But Amthor insists that Marlowe knows where Velma is, and the large Malloy overpowers Marlowe, choking him into submission. Amthor is very condescending toward Marlowe saying, he is a “dirty, stupid little man in a dirty stupid world. One spot of brightness” on him and he’d still be worthless. We again have the image of the spotlight used, only the elegant criminal ironically sees himself, by way of his affluent window dressing, as deserving to be in the limelight. The working-class Marlowe doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is, and the uppity Amthor can’t see beyond the PI’s more pedestrian surface. Marlowe slugs Amthor, but the man knocks Marlowe out by hitting him with a revolver. Marlowe again is pushed into that blackness of unconsciousness, where one is unable to see what’s really happening.

 

In his dreamlike state, Marlowe hallucinates, including seeing many doors, possibly symbolizing an attempt to discover what exists behind those barriers, his desire to solve the mystery. He wakes up looking at a ceiling light, but not much is revealed since he is still half delirious. He is confined to a room in some sort of medical facility, but Malloy is there, so it appears that Amthor had Marlowe brought to the asylum. Marlowe knows he’s been drugged since he feels doped up. Everything looks as if he is seeing things through a spider web, which is a metaphor for how things have been spun to obscure seeing clearly. He shakes off the stupor and overpowers a man who has a blackjack. Marlowe takes the weapon and then confronts a physician, Dr. Sonderborg (Ralf Harolde), and acquires a gun the doctor takes from a drawer. Sonderborg says Marlowe has been out for three days. Marlowe concludes he was drugged to learn about the jade necklace, which he doesn’t know about anyway. The doctor fails to bring those cobwebs back, and Marlowe resolves to reveal what is really happening. He rallies enough stamina to leave.

 

Marlowe runs into Malloy, who seems to believe now that Amthor was lying about helping him find Velma. He gets a cab for Marlowe, but the PI suspects, again, that things aren’t what they seem, and that Malloy is up to something. Marlowe goes to the address that Ann gave him which is where she lives on her own. She asks if he is alright, and the words and her voice sound like the woman who he heard when he woke up next to Marriott’s car. Ann was there, probably having overheard the Grayles’ plans, and she says she cares about her father and was trying to protect his interests from the scheming Helen. She acquired Marlowe’s name after going through Marriott’s pockets after he was killed. 

 

Lt. Randall and Detective Nulty (Paul Phillips) show up at Ann’s and Marlowe tells them about being manhandled and drugged by Amthor. He says he wants to help the police catch the guy. He tells them that he thinks Amthor set up rich love-starved women and then stole from them. He says he believes Marriott tried to double-cross Amthor. He tells Randall about Dr. Sonderborg and his house of horrors (a medical facility which pretends to help others but does just the opposite). He doesn’t say anything about Ann’s father being involved for Ann’s sake (an empathetic withholding of the truth). Despite what he’s been through, Marlowe can still crack wise, saying they are going to “Buckingham Palace,” Grayle’s house, and feels hungry because it’s funny that “every third day” he usually has to eat something. Ann says he gets batted around and he doesn’t “even know which side” he’s on. He widens the observation by saying, “I don’t know which side anybody’s on.” That is how convoluted and deceptive the upside down world is according to Marlowe. There is no moral center to anchor one’s morality. 

 

Marlowe and Ann find Leuwen in his workshop. He is holding a gun, and he says he is frightened. Marlowe assumes that the police were there, and Ann’s father says that they were interested in the family beach house, since it was rented to Marriott. Leuwen says his buying Helen’s companionship has led to a death and danger and he wants it to stop. He tells Marlowe he’ll pay him to stop looking into the case. He agrees to quit, but outside he tells Ann that he wants the key to the beach house, because, again, in the midst of all the underhanded activity, he was hired to protect someone, and he failed. Also, he doesn’t want it known that he could have been involved in a man’s death.

 

They go to the beach house and find its contents tossed about. Marlowe voices an anti-cop line when he says the first thing Lt. Randall does after a person is murdered is mess up his house. Ann raises the question about whether Marriott just found Marlowe’s name in the phone book or was directed to go to him. Marlowe says there are things he’ll never know, which points to the unfathomable murkiness of the dissembling underbelly of society. Ann is attracted to Marlowe and they kiss. He guesses at Ann’s motivations and actions as he tells her that maybe she thought her father went to the secluded spot to kill Marriott, and ran when she saw it was Marlowe and not her dad was there. He suggests that she thought Marlowe would become another of Helen’s lovers and tried to pay him to drop the case so she could hide her stepmother’s extramarital adventures from her father. But then he says once her father failed to buy Marlowe off, she started to act nice to him, which suggests that her affection toward Marlowe isn’t genuine. Her disgust for his theory seems genuine to Marlowe, and he tries to dial back the implication. But, Anne is angry and starts to say how she hates men.

 

They then hear laughter which comes from Helen (who was hidden, of course, in the shadows), as she says Ann has learned that men “play rough. They soften you up, throw you off guard, and then belt you one.” Helen obviously subscribes to the belief that the relationship between men and women is a battle of the sexes. But Ann says she is not just on the side of the women. Referring to Helen, she says she hates calculating women, “especially the big-league blondes” who exploit men for their own gain, act lovely, but “inside blue steel cold” is at their center. Helen’s witty reply is that Ann’s “slip is showing,” because she too, although not selfish, has tried to hide things from men and control them. Ann knows her father loves Helen, so to protect him she says she’ll say Helen is fine and then she leaves.

 

Marlowe is hostile to Helen because she had Amthor try to extract from him where the jade necklace was, probably thinking he found out from Marriott. She says that Amthor is blackmailing her since he knows she goes out with other men. Marlowe is funny after she says she finds men very attractive and he says, “I imagine they meet you halfway.” She says she didn't realize that Marriott was closely connected to Amthor (another hidden fact). She says Amthor uses his psychological gifts to uncover what people are hiding and uses it for blackmail. Amthor helped her with a speech impediment, but by doing so uncovered her secrets and used them against her. Here we have two deceptions, the person with something unsavory to hide and a person pretending to help but really turning that person into a victim. Amthor found out about the necklace and wanted it as a payoff to keep silent. But it was stolen. She thinks it was Marriott who helped steal it, and then pretended (more dissembling) to be the go-between between the robber and the Grayles. Then Amthor killed Marriott, and since Marlowe was there, he could be the patsy. While she is talking, Helen turns out the light. It fits with the theme of concealment, but is she also trying to seduce Marlowe, since sex many times occurs in the dark? She tells Marlowe that she wants him to kill Amthor, since her blackmailer will never be satisfied and if her husband finds out about all her infidelities, it will kill him, given his age. She then hugs and kisses Marlowe. He plays along and the plan is to pretend Marlowe has the necklace and lure Amthor out to the beach house (another devious plan).

 

Marlowe goes to Amthor’s place, and finds things thrown around. He finds Amthor dead, and says it had to be a big guy who snapped his neck. Of course that means Malloy, who later shows up at Marlowe’s office. Marlowe knows he didn’t mean to kill Amthor, he just roughed him up too much trying to find out about Velma. Malloy still wants to know where Velma is. Marlowe has a hunch and shows him the picture of Velma that he took from Jessie, says he knows where she is, and sets up an appointment to meet him. 

 

Marlowe is also someone who is devious in his actions, but he does so to get at the truth, even if it is elusive. He and Malloy go to the beach house at night (again, symbolically and literally the time for covert activities). He tells Malloy to stay outside until he opens the curtains. Helen’s devious nature is suggested in the image of her being invisible in the unlit room, resting on the couch, only her cigarette smoke revealing that she is there. Marlowe unlocks the door for Malloy to enter later. Helen tells Marlowe to close the curtains and turn on the lights, because now the truth will be exposed. She shows Marlowe the necklace, which was never stolen. It was just a ruse to stop Amthor from getting it. Marriott was just a pawn in the con. Helen says she’ll give the necklace to Marlowe for helping to get rid of Amthor. Marlowe says what he already guessed, that she is Velma, and it was her that Mrs. Florian called when Marlowe came looking for her. She recruited Marriott to stop Marlowe because the private eye was trying to find out about her, which would have cut off her financial support for Marriott and Mrs. Florian. If Malloy exposed her then her cover would be blown, revealing her for the scam artist she is. She killed Marriott to connect him to the lie about thieves stealing the necklace, but didn’t finish off Marlowe, because, he says, he has a hard head. But, he still could have been blamed for Marriott’s death. 

 

She admits it’s all true, and plays the victim, but that doesn’t work on Marlowe. He says she worked her femme fatale ways on Malloy a while back, and she broke the law, and that is what Amthor was really using to blackmail her. Her husband knew about the other men, but not the criminal past. Helen has a gun and prevents Marlowe from signaling Malloy. Instead, Ann surprises them, coming out of the shadows near the door, and she is accompanied by Leuwen, showing there is more happening than what one expected. Leuwen also is not as innocent as he seems. He says Amthor will be coming and Helen tells her husband to take Marlowe’s gun. Helen admits this time will not be the first she killed someone. Before she can shoot Marlowe, Leuwen kills Helen. Marlowe starts to call the police, and Ann tries to stop him, as she still wants to protect her father by covering up the shooting, saying Helen was evil and deserved to die. Malloy shows up and Leuwen says he loved Helen/Velma and couldn’t lose her to anyone else. Realizing Leuwen killed his Velma, Malloy attacks Leuwen, who fires the gun with Marlowe very close to the weapon as he tries to prevent the violence. 

 

That is how Marlowe’s eyes were “scorched,” and why he is wearing the bandage as we return to the opening scene in the police station. Despite trying to shed light on the situation, Marlowe is literally and figuratively still in the dark about whether anyone else was shot. But his temporary physical blindness may suggest that, as Marlowe said earlier, that he’ll never uncover all the lies infesting his world. Lt. Randall gives him his belongings and says he can leave. Marlowe says Ann must have backed him up. She is there, but doesn’t want him to know it (even when there is nothing dangerous involved, we still have concealment). Randall tells him that both Malloy and Leuwen were killed in their grappling for the gun. Randall gives the necklace to Marlowe since it was Helen’s and she gave it to him. But he doesn’t want anything to do with it since it was tied to the dirty business that transpired. Nulty helps Marlowe to a cab as Ann quietly follows. Marlowe says nice things about Ann, and she gets in the cab next to him. He can smell her perfume and playfully says he hasn’t kissed anybody in a while and asks “Nulty” if he can kiss him. Helen had told him the gun in his shoulder holster hurts a woman when hugging her. He takes it out, knowing Ann is there, and her presence is romantically disarming. Even though there was murder, the film ends sweetly. 

The next film is Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage.