starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley
directed by Edward Dmytryk
95 minutes
Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) finds himself caught between opposing forces when he tries to work two different cases only to discover that they are interrelated. First, Moose Malloy hires Marlowe to find Velma, his girlfriend from years ago. Second, less that a day later, Lindsay Marriott hires Marlowe to help him facilitate the payment of a ransom for a stolen necklace.
Marriott turns up dead. Marlowe gets knocked out and gets caught between various parties who want the missing jade necklace. One of those parties is Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor) the rightful owner of the missing necklace, who hires him to find it but then pulls a disappearing act.
Philip also gets mixed up with Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley), the daughter of Helen's husband by a previous marriage. Marlowe gets captured, drugged, and endures hallucinations until he escapes with some help from Moose Malloy who was partially responsible for his capture in the first place.
Thoughts
I saw this movie as part of the 2025 edition of the Noir City DC film festival.
I was a little distracted during this movie by the man sitting in front of me who seemed to be constantly tilting his head first to the left and then back to the right, repeatedly, throughout the movie.
This movie is about as confusing as another Philip Marlowe movie, The Big Sleep (1946). I would probably need to see this movie at least one more time to be able to pull the pieces apart and make sense of it all. Honestly, I'm not sure if it all would make sense after another viewing.
I enjoyed watching this film. I thought it was a fun watch but it wasn't a great film in my estimation. It follows a familiar pattern. That probably accounts at least in part for why I enjoyed it as much as I did. Most of the performances were at least good to very good.
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