1 of my top 5 favs
Great script, great performances. I can't believe the low rating on this classic.
Ben
Old movies, old radio, new books.
http://www.bearmanormedia.com
Last year, I watched every "Philip Marlowe" film I had in my collection as a set. Imagine my shock when I realized, THE FALCON TAKES OVER was my favorite of the 3 versions of FAREWELL MY LOVELY. Somehow, I never quite warmed up to Dick Powell, and while I'm absolutely nuts about Robert Mitchum's THE BIG SLEEP, his FAREWELL MY LOVELY, to me, is just TOO-- DAMN-- DEPRESSING! I know, maybe it's supposed to be... but there you go.
Meanwhile, while not REALLY an adaptation, LADY IN CEMENT uses the opening of FAREWELL MY LOVELY as a springboard for a very different story. In that one, the "Moose" character slowly becomes friends with the detective, and is one of the best characters in the story.
profh-1:
While I can't fully agree that The Falcon Takes Over is the best version of Farewell My Lovely, I love this version, and I find your points about the other two well-taken. Powell was perfectly unlikeable in Murder My Sweet. The movie failed to keep a consistent mood, and Mike Mazurki was miscast as Moose Mallory. They should have rehired Ward Bond and the padded coat!
The 1975 version tried too hard to capture the mood of the 'forties, Mitchum was too old and too laid-back, and, as you observed, it worked overtime to be sleazy, and depressing. But that is afterall what Chandler did. I read all of his Marlowe novels when I was a teenager and thought they were the greatest books ever writen. A re-reading of most of them when I was in my fifties lowered that assessment considerably. I still enjoyed them, but I no longer consider them the great literature they are so often made out to be. Brilliant in places, but uneven, and often unsatisfying. Chanderler's characterization is weak, particularly of female characters. His detective's character varies from book to book, and even acts out-of-character in the same book. The overall work presents a grim view of humanity and life in general, which appeals to a typically rebellious teenager and to those adults who have never matured into a wholesome outlook on life. The 1946 Howard Hawks movie version of The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart is better than anything Chandler wrote, and has considerably enhanced Chandler's reputation as an author.
All of which is irrelevant in judging any movie version of a book. The movie should stand by itself. And The Falcon Takes Over does so. As I have previously stated both on this board and in reviews -- if you have read a book you liked very much, do not watch the movie version. Conversely, if you have seen a motion picture you have liked very much, do not seek out the book upon which it was based, if there is one. So much bitterness will thus be saved.
I rated The Falcon Takes Over an 8-star. I bought both DVD volumes of the Falcon series, and this is the first watched. I hope the others are as much better than the Saint series as this one.
By the way, if you haven't added The Brasher Doubloon (1947) (The High Window) to your Marlowe collection, by all means do so. Pay whatever your source wants for it. It is terrific! That's "awesome" to those of you under 40.
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He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45