1975 adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s classic hard-boiled detective novel Farewell, My Lovely is arguably the best film noir made in colour, and its star Robert Mitchum can be described as the best actor to play private detective Philip Marlowe. So it isn’t surprising that Mitchum became the only actor to portray that iconic character twice, the second film being The Big Sleep, directed in 1978 by Michael Winner.
Unlike the first film, a faithful adaptation set in 1940s Los Angeles, the second had its setting transplanted to contemporary London. Mitchum plays Marlowe as an American private detective working in Britain, and the plot starts when he visits one of his countrymen, the elderly General Sternwood (played by James Stewart), in order to help him handle a blackmail demand. Marlowe soon discovers that the case might be connected to the general’s daughters – the older Charlotte (played by Sarah Miles), whose loveless marriage apparently ended with her husband’s mysterious disappearance; and the younger, mentally unbalanced Camilla (played by Candy Clark). Marlowe’s investigation leads him to a book store, which is revealed to be a front for a pornography business, and whose owner soon meets a violent demise, becoming the first of many who would be killed as Marlowe delves deep into the world of sleaze, blackmail, organised crime and dysfunctional families in order to discover who was blackmailing the Sternwoods and why.
The plot of Chandler’s novel was notoriously complex, in a way that even the author couldn’t handle, so he left some subplots unresolved. This remained the case in its first screen adaptation, the classic 1946 film noir directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart. In the new version, the complexity of the plot becomes an issue thanks to the direction of Michael Winner, who was apparently guided by the producers’ desire to keep the budget as low as possible and worked very hard to keep the running time within 90 minutes. As a result, the pace is very fast, with many important plot elements not developed or explained enough, and many characters barely having time to be introduced before being killed. Many otherwise dependable actors are reduced to glorified cameos, while others seem terribly miscast – like Richard Boone in the role of a supposedly menacing hitman. Throughout the film, Winner insists on speed at the expense of creating a proper (neo)noirish atmosphere and even at the expense of the quality of certain scenes, including a gunfight – a scene which, according to later claims by Winner, featured actors who were terribly drunk during the shooting. Some elements, on the other hand, do work. Winner, unlike Hawks in 1946, was unrestrained by the censorship of Hollywood’s notorious Hays Code, so he tries to keep the audience’s attention with exploitative content like graphic violence and nudity. The latter is provided by a very enthusiastic Candy Clark in a way that is somewhat justified, since her character happens to be a psychotic nymphomaniac. Stewart, who had serious problems with hearing and memory during the production, gives a surprisingly moving portrayal of the sick father. Mitchum, despite entering the seventh decade of his life, handles the role of Marlowe competently, but even he cannot rise above the film’s limitations, and it is quite understandable why, after The Big Sleep, he never got the opportunity to play that character for a third time.
RATING: 4/10 (++)
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