- Part of what makes Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet so memorable is that it fully acknowledges just how absurd Philip Marlowe's adventures really were. The eminently self-aware Marlowe knew this, too, as did his creator, Raymond Chandler, but film adaptations haven't always caught on. Murder, My Sweet, however, fully realizes that it is inherently funny when a detective gets knocked unconscious the third or fourth time (I lost count). Marlowe himself, played wonderfully by Dick Powell, questions why people keep shoving money at him when he isn't doing anything, and the film knows that there is humor, not romance, in a second woman putting her head on Marlowe's shoulder only five minutes after the first one did. Just because it's hard-boiled doesn't mean you have to play it straight.
- Those women, by the way, are an innocent angel named Ann (Anne Shirley) and her poisonous stepmother Mrs. Grayle (Claire Trevor). The aged Mr. Grayle (Miles Mander) is a collector of valuables, apparently including women much younger than him, and one of the many ways that Marlowe gets tied up in this case involves a missing necklace belonging to the Grayle clan. But there I go, trying to summarize the plot of what is clearly a potboiler. The point is that Marlowe gets dragged around by the mountainous mobster Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki), led into a trap by the effete Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton), and drugged into a daze by the disreputable Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger). "I don't know which side anybody's on," Marlowe quips. "I don't even know who's playing today."
- The film's best scenes have Marlowe asking questions even he doesn't understand to people who are obviously lying for reasons unknown. Fortunately, this describes nearly every scene in the film, which is part of why Murder, My Sweet works so well. Another reason is Dmytryk's snappy direction that has a lot of fun with mirror reflections and what goes on just outside the frame. He also demonstrates great creativity in depicting the famous hallucination scene (also in the novel) that really is as "crazy as a couple of waltzing mice." Add in stellar performances by Trevor and Powell, the latter of whom provides precisely the right amount of wry narration, and...well, why not just let Marlowe have the last word. On Esther Howard's character: "She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink, if she had to knock you down to get the bottle."
- Based on Farewell, My Lovely, but apparently the name was changed so that people wouldn't think it was a love story.
