Raymond Chandler didn't invent hard-boiled detective fiction, but his gritty tales featuring private eye Philip Marlowe represent the genre's apotheosis, and Murder, My Sweet is arguably the best screen adaptation of a Marlowe adventure, rivaled only by The Big Sleep. Based on a 1940 Chandler novel (Farewell, My Lovely), Murder opens with the cynical, world-weary Marlowe (former crooner Dick Powell in his career-changing role) reluctantly accepting a commission from hulking gangster Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki), who's looking for his missing girlfriend. This job brings the smooth-talking shamus into contact with murderers and blackmailers, gets him strung out on drugs, and very nearly costs him his life. Powell, perhaps best known for his warbling in such memorable Busby Berkeley musicals as 42nd Street, is surprisingly effective as Marlowe; the same can be said of leading lady Claire Trevor, here attempting the first in a long string of femme fatale roles. John Paxton's screenplay stays relatively faithful to the novel and preserves quite a bit of Chandler's terse dialogue. To a great extent the direction of Edward Dmytryk relies on the narrative and cinematographic techniques that would become trademarks of the then emerging film noir style. Innumerable private-eye films that come later owe a great deal of their form and substance to Murder, My Sweet. Chandler himself thought this film the best cinematic adaptation of one of his stories, and 60 years later it still ranks among the very best murder mysteries Hollywood has created.
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