Murder, My Sweet

(Edward Dmytryk, US 1944, 95 min., 35mm)

War, Myth, Desire. Dick Powell is the big screen’s first Philip Marlowe in this adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely. Detective Marlowe is hired by ex-con Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki) to track down the woman he loves, but the private eye soon finds himself entangled with a blonde femme fatale (Claire Trevor) and implicated in murder. Atmospheric, hard-edged, and nightmarish, Dmytryk’s masterwork is the granddaddy of 1940s detective noir.