Farewell, My Lovely

Richard Mitchum

Dick Richards' Farewell, My Lovely, from 1975, is an unsuccessful rendition of the Raymond Chandler novel. The whole affair has a waxworks feel to it. In a contemporary review, Time's Jay Cocks put it best:

Watching the movie has approximately the same effect as being locked overnight in a secondhand clothing store in Pasadena. There is an awful lot of dust and, after a while, the dummies look as if they are moving.

Richards' direction lacks energy and the movie proceeds listlessly, even during its violent episodes. The film's set pieces, a fracas in a brothel and a swank soiree in a nightclub, lack immediacy. The film is handsomely appointed, mostly due to John Alonzo's photography and Dean Tavoularis' production design, but it never springs to life.

David Zelag Goodman's screenplay attempts to streamline Chandler's typically knotty plot. Key incidents and characters, most notably Anne Riordan, are eliminated. Psychic Jules Anthor is turned into a brothel madam. Now such changes are not necessarily fatal to the project. Indeed, Chandler's novel, as written, cannot fit into the form of a feature length film. Goodman was probably wise to largely eliminate the racist attitudes and invectives contained in the novel. However, the net effect is to soften the hard boiled Philip Marlowe. Goodman gives the character a sweet fondness for children and baseball that doesn't jibe with the cynical detective Chandler created. 

Charlotte Rampling

The performances in the film are all over the map. Harry Dean Stanton is surprisingly dull as a corrupt policeman. John Ireland seems mummified. Sylvia Miles descends to type as the blousy Mrs. Florian. Jack O'Halloran is an ineffective cartoon as Moose Malloy. Charlotte Rampling is well cast as a chilly femme fatale, but her romantic scenes with Robert Mitchum beggar belief. Pulp great Jim Thompson has an effective cameo as Rampling's husband. Sylvester Stallone is also good in a wordless role as a goon.

Despite being too old to be the character, Robert Mitchum as Marlowe nearly redeems the picture. When picturing his weathered visage as his voiceover intones Chandler's pungent narration, the film is on firm ground. Mitchum was made for such a role, but it was a pity he couldn't have tackled it twenty years before.