Fri 28 Feb 2020
A 1001 Midnights Review by Bill Pronzini: RAYMOND CHANDLER – Farewell My Lovely.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[9] Comments
by Bill Pronzini
RAYMOND CHANDLER – Farewell My Lovely. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1940. Pocket Book #212, paperback, 1943. Reprinted many times.
Many critics consider The Long Goodbye to be Chandler’s finest novel. This one disagrees. That distinction should probably go to Farewell, My Lovely – a more tightly plotted, less self-indulgent and overblown book, with characters, scenes, and prose of such artistry that it ranks as not only a cornerstone private-eye novel but a cornerstone work in the genre. Its near-flawless construction is all the more awesome when you consider that like The Big Sleep, it is a product of “canniballzation”: It makes extensive use of “The Man Who Liked Dogs” (Black Mask, March 1936); “Try the Girl” (Black Mask, January 1937); and “Mandarin’s Jade” (Dime Detective, November 1937).
Marlowe’s client in this case is Moose Malloy, a giant ex-con with a one-track mind: All that matters to him is finding his former girlfriend, Velma, a redhead “cute as lace pants,” who disappeared after he was sent to prison. Marlowe is a reluctant detective, his first encounter with Malloy having ended in the wreckage of a bar, Florian’s, where Velma once worked and a black bouncer suffering a broken neck; but Malloy won’t take no for an answer.
As Marlowe’s search for Velma develops, “the atmosphere becomes increasingly malevolent and charged with evil.” Among the characters he meets are a foppish blackmailer named Lindsay Marriott; a gin-drinking old lady with secrets and a fine new radio; a beautiful blonde with no morals and a rich husband who doesn’t give a damn; a Hollywood Indian named Second Planting who has “the shoulders of a blacksmith and the … legs of a chimpanzee”; a phony psychic, Jules Amthor: Dr. Sonderborg, who runs a private psychiatric clinic staffed with thugs; Laird Brunelle, the tough operator of a gambling ship called the Royal Crown; and L.A. and Bay City cops, some of whom are as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.
The climax, in which Marlowe and Moose Malloy both come face-to-face with the elusive Velma, is a stunner. Like a number of other scenes — especially Marlowe’s drugged imprisonment in Sonderberg’s clinic, in a room “full of smoke [that] hung straight up in the air, in thin lines, straight up and down like a curtain of small clear beads”-it remains sharp in one’s memory long after reading.
Farewell. My Lovely was filmed twice, once in 1944 as Murder, My Sweet, With Dick Powell as Marlowe, and once in 1975 under its original title, with Robert Mitchum in the starring role. The Powell version is the better of the two, even though Mitchum, aging and slightly seedy, better captures the essence of Marlowe. (Powell isn’t bad, though-a surprisingly gritty performance for an actor who began his career as a crooner in Busby Berkley musicals.) Mike Mazurki’s portrayal of Moose Malloy in Murder My Sweet is more memorable (and credible) than Jack O’Halloran’ s in Farewell. And the noir style of the earlier film better captures the flavor of Chandler’s work than the arty, full-color remake.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
February 28th, 2020 at 5:45 pm
A third, if unofficial film version, The Falcon Takes Over with George Sanders as the detective and Ward Bond playing Moose Malloy in 1942; directed by Irving Reis, who five years later made his mark with Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. Both are okay.
February 28th, 2020 at 7:42 pm
I did not know that, Barry, or if I did, I’d forgotten. Thanks!
February 28th, 2020 at 9:46 pm
My vote for the perfect Chandler novel, the balance between the pulp, the art, the lyrical language, and his ambition all in fine balance.
Some of the best lines come from this one including the famous tarantula on a piece of angel food cake and the quip about Hemingway that even Papa loved.
Nicholas Freeling used the last line as the title of one of his Castaing novels .., NOT AS FAR AS VELMA.
Ironically this isn’t the only Chandler novel that ended up part of another series. THE HIGH WINDOW was adapted as an entry in the Lloyd Nolan Michael Shayne series.
February 28th, 2020 at 10:09 pm
Yes, I completely agree with Bill as to #1 Chandler being Farewell My Lovely followed by The Long Goodbye, and if anyone cares,my #3 is
Lady In The Lake. As far as the movies, yes,the
Powell movie is terrific, but damn, Mitchum really nails it! My favorite scene is when Mitchum is being held in the whorehouse and the Madame slaps him hard across the face for some remark he made. Mitchum starts to laugh,gets out of his chair and slams his fist into her pan! Great stuff. As to the Falcon version, I’m sure I’ve seen it but just can’t place it. I’ll have to dig it out and watch it again.
February 28th, 2020 at 10:28 pm
I might as well chime in and say I agree. This is Chandler at his best.
February 29th, 2020 at 12:23 am
My own personal favorite is THE HIGH WINDOW, but it’s hard to fault FAREWELL. and you should go out of your way NOT to see THE FALCON TAKES OVER.
February 29th, 2020 at 7:28 am
I’ve always felt Mike Mazurki was born to play Moose Malloy.
February 29th, 2020 at 10:53 am
I heard it was always his ambition to play Oscar Wilde in a 1-man show, but I’m not sure of the source.
March 3rd, 2020 at 5:08 am
This is the Chandler that i liked the most when i first read his books. I was buying one every weekend from a bookshop opposite my office in downtown. The supply gave out in seven weeks and i picked up a Hammett which was on the same shelf. No regrets there.
It’s still the most memorable Chandler/Marlowe I’ve read. What characters! That beautiful femme fatale, Velma, who climbed the ladder of success stepping on the back of every man in her life in her heels; and tried to pull up the rungs behind her so that no one could trace her history. The massive Moose Malloy, a force of nature that will not be stopped, on a mission to find his past and resume his interrupted life. And of course Marlowe as philosopher, knight, detective and narrator with the beauty of Chandler’s polished prose behind him.
If i could only pack one Chandler with me, this would be the one.