Pun Salad

Although I've been a Raymond Chandler fan since I was a kid, I've been hit-or-miss on seeing movies based on his works. This 1944 effort stars Dick Powell as Chandler's classic private eye character, Philip Marlowe.

The action starts when Moose Malloy, a dumb hulk just out of the slammer, engages Marlowe to look for his pre-imprisonment sweetie, Velma. An initial foray into the bar where Velma used to work ends badly, but Marlowe tracks down the widow of the bar's previous owner, who clearly has something to hide.

Seemingly (but of course, totally un-) coincidentally, a fop named Mariott hires Marlowe to accompany him on a payoff, attempting to buy back some stolen jewelry for a lady friend. This also goes poorly, with Marlowe getting knocked out and Mariott winding up dead. Marlowe needs to solve this murder in order to avoid taking the fall himself.

The plot is twisty, straying quite a bit from what I remember of the book. Dick Powell is pretty good with Chandlerian narrative. Example: "It was a nice little front yard. Cozy, okay for the average family. Only you'd need a compass to go to the mailbox. The house was all right, too, but it wasn't as big as Buckingham Palace." Ah, I love that stuff.

But Marlowe always struck me as an unflappable sort; Powell is too often flapped.

I caught something amusing at Amazon: Murder, My Sweet is currently #31 on their bestselling list of "Child Safety & First Aid" DVDs. (It's got a way to go before beating On The Town with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, which is #5 as I type.) Gee, I think some self-amused Amazonian might be gaming that list…