NYFF ’17: Farewell, My Lovely

It is hard to believe, but Robert Mitchum was the only actor to play Philip Marlowe in more than one feature film. Even Humphrey Bogart was one-and-done after The Big Sleep (he was Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon). Chandler fans prefer to forget Mitchum’s second outing in a modern day Big Sleep remake, but his debut as Raymond Chandler’s classic gumshoe is justly considered one of the best. Fittingly, Dick Richards’ Farewell, My Lovely screens as part of the Robert Mitchum retrospective during the 55th New York Film Festival.

Some perhaps thought Mitchum was too old for the part in 1975, but this is also an older, more reflective Marlowe. After years of working cases for twenty-five dollars a day, plus expenses, Marlowe finds himself aging out of a profession that provides plenty of enemies but no health insurance. Currently, he is laying low in a flea bag motel, trying to avoid both the cops and the bad guys. His latest case has taken a particularly nasty turn, as we shall see, in media res.

By being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Marlowe is hired by Moose Malloy, an ex-con fresh out of the joint, to find his missing lover, Velma. It is hard to say no to anyone named Moose. As Marlowe starts to follow leads on Velma, he initially gets the runaround and then people start trying to kill him. Apparently, they want to kill Moose too, but he lays low even better than Marlowe. When in doubt, Marlowe and everyone else he crosses paths with swill gallons of booze. Seriously, this could almost be Hong Sang-soo’s Marlowe movie. Frankly, as in most great Chandler movies, the plot details are a little hazy, but the noir atmosphere and 1940s period production details are to die for.

John A. Alonzo’s moody color cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, in a nostalgic, back alley kind of way. Yet, David Shire (still probably best known for his funky Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 theme) does him one better, with a dreamily bluesy crime jazz score. Featuring jazz musicians who were totally comfortable in a studio session, such as Dick Nash, Ronnie Lang, Chuck Findley, Cappy Lewis, and Larry Bunker, the soundtrack album stood on its surprisingly well (take it from me).

Of course, it is Mitchum who utterly dominates the film as a haggard, world-weary Marlowe in a performance of seemingly effortless perfection. There have been other good Marlowes (Powers Boothe was the man when it came to television), but Mitchum was the only one who could hang with Bogart.

Yet, Farewell is fully stocked with colorful supporting turns, including a wonderfully vampy Charlotte Rampling as femme fatale Helen Grayle. Former boxer Jack O’Halloran (one of the three super villains in Superman II) is absolutely terrific as Malloy, the lovestruck tough guy. Criminally underappreciated John Ireland is rock solid as the honest copper, Lt. Nulty, while Harry Dean Stanton plays the brazenly corrupt Det. Rolfe with understated menace. In terms of historical footnotes, Farewell features a young Sylvester Stallone as a henchman, crime novelist Jim Thompson in his only movie cameo as Judge Baxter Wilson Grayle, and Jerry Bruckheimer receiving his first full producer credit behind-the-scenes.

David Zelag Goodman’s adapted screenplay has an end-of-an-era vibe, poignantly heightened by the pleasure Marlowe takes throughout the film following Joe DiMaggio’s famous pursuit of the consecutive-game hitting streak record, which baseball fans know will end in frustration. Again, it is Mitchum’s narration that makes it work so well. This is simply a classic P.I. film and a representative high-point in Mitchum’s filmography. Very highly recommended, Farewell, My Lovely screens this Saturday (10/14) as part of the 2017 New York Film Festival.

The American Side: Niagara Noir

If you think Niagara Falls is a romantic spot, you probably haven’t seen Niagara with Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten. Hopefully, you are also unfamiliar with local P.I. Charlie Paczynski, who specializes in the sleaziest divorce cases possible. When the stripper-partner he employs for honey trap scams is rather inconveniently murdered, the Polish detective will blunder into a far-reaching conspiracy in Jenna Ricker’s The American Side (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Paczynski and “Kat” were basically running a blackmail operation, until one of her “dates” up and killed her. He liked her way more than Sam Spade liked Miles Archer, so he duly follows the clues to a suspicious character named Tom Soberin. When his chief suspect takes a swan dive off the Falls, Paczynski realizes there is a larger scheme at work. It turns out Soberin was once an employee of an experimental energy firm, whose co-founders have had a falling out. It is unclear which faction he ultimately chose, but he supposedly had an affair with Emily Chase, the younger, far less stable but much more alluring sister of Borden Chase, who largely won the corporate power struggle.

Sterling Whitmore, Borden Chase’s ostensible partner, serves up cryptic clues to Paczynski while he develops a high tech barrel sufficiently reinforced to provide safe passage over the American side of the Falls. Evidently, people have made the ill-advised trip on the more forgiving Canadian side, but not from New York. In fact, Paczinski will have no shortage of dubious sources, including a fishy FBI agent, a Serbian spook, and “the Eavesdropper.”

Side starts out as a nifty old school noir that fully capitalizes on the faded glory of its Buffalo and Niagara Falls locales. However, viewers better hold on to their hats when wildly speculative Nikola Tesla schematics enter the picture. Holy death rays, Mike Hammer. It is so crazy, it kind of works.

Co-screenwriter Greg Stuhr has the right kind of nervy presence and caustic attitude for a hardnosed antihero like Paczynski. Alicja Bachleda (so terrific in Ondine) smolders up the lens as Nikki Meeker, the Tesla expert in distress. Matthew Broderick’s Borden Chase will be nobody’s idea of a sinister heavy, but as Emily Chase, Camilla Belle is a hot mess in the grand tradition of Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep. However, nobody can out-noir Robert Forster doing his thing as Whitmore, even when Robert Vaughn and Joe Grifasi (FX the movie) pop up in cameos.

Cinematographer Frank Barrera gives it all a suitably murky, noir glow, while David Shire (whose soundtrack for the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three remains a perennial collector favorite) reinforces the mood with his insinuating score. Like The Big Sleep referenced above, The American Side is a fun film, even when it doesn’t make perfect sense. Recommended for genre fans, it opens this Friday (4/29) in New York, at the IFC Center.