Murder, My Sweet
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This came out in 1944, but I didn't see it until 2026, during my summer of film noir. It's based on the Raymond Chandler novel "Farewell, My Lovely", which I haven't read. It's one of the oldest and most classic films noir, but I'm afraid I only liked it a little bit. The mystery seemed too convoluted to me, and it was hard to follow.

Private detective Philip Marlowe is interroated by police, including Lt. Randall, about two murders. Marlowe's eyes are bandaged, for a reason that won't become clear until the near the end of the movie. I do like the fact that his telling the whole story to the police provides a reason for Marlowe to be narrating the movie, which I think is common in films noir, without necessarily having a reason for it. Anyway, he was hired by a guy called Moose, who has recently gotten out of prison after eight years, to find Moose's former girlfriend, Velma. He doesn't get very far in that investigation before he's hired by a guy named Marriott to act as his bodyguard, while Marriott acts as a go-between to deliever money in exchange for stolen jewelry, which later turns out to be a jade necklace. But Marriott ends up being killed, and Marlowe is knocked out, and the money is stolen.

The police later question Marlowe, and Randall mentions someone named Jules Amthor, whom Marlowe has never heard of. He warns Marlowe not to get involved with the case, but of course he does, anyway. A woman named Ann Grayle tries to get information from him abuot the necklace, and then takes him to meet her elderly father, who is married to a younger woman named Helen, who was the owner of the stolen necklace. Then Amthor shows up, and Marlowe learns that he's a phony psychic. And... I dunno, a lot of other stuff happens, including Marlowe once again being knocked out, and injected with some kind of drug. He wakes up three days later in a sanatorium. I did kind of like the weird, delirious dreams Marlowe had while he was unconscious, which seemed to me a bit more fanciful a scene than I would expect to see in a film noir (but not too fanciful). And I kind of liked the incredibly cheap gimmick of having the camera lens apparently covered with something to make the audience see the "smoke" that Marlowe saw when he first woke up, before his head cleared. Anyway, he escapes from the sanatorium and goes on with his investigation. Oh, and I should say that Moose ended up working for Amthor, who tricked him into thinking Marlowe knew were Velma was. And... ugh, there's just so much going on that I couldn't entirely follow, especially anytime Marlowe talked about his theories of what had happened to the necklace and Marriott and everything.

Well, the whole case is eventually solved, what happened to the necklace and to Marriott and to Velma, and some more murders happen (so I'm not sure why the police were only questioning Marlowe about two murders). But to be honest, I couldn't even tell if Marlowe actually solved the case or it just sort of solved itself. There were times in the movie that he complained about his not actually doing anything, which I liked, because it was so true. Not that he wasn't trying to do things, but... all the other characters provided very little information, and they were all more of a hindrance than a help to his investigation. And... I just don't know what else to say. It wasn't a bad movie, by any means, and it's probably objectively better than my limited ability to appreciate it. And I guess I'm glad to have seen it, but I don't expect to find it super memorable. Nor do I think the explanation of everything that happened makes much sense. But whatever.