Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and Chinatown (1974)

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This weekend I went to see a double feature of
[url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072973/]Farewell, My Lovely[/url] (1975)
and [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/]Chinatown[/url] (1974).

Chinatown was up first. This is about the fifth time I've seen it and third
time on the big screen. I love this film. Set in the 50's, it is a film noir
story starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway and directed by Roman
Polanski, his last film in America. Robert Towne won an Oscar for Best
Original Screenplay for his script.

"Los Angeles detective Jake Gittes is hired by a woman claiming to be a Mrs.
Mulwray to spy on her husband. Shortly after Gittes is hired, the real Mrs.
Mulwray appears in his office threatening to sue if he doesn't drop the case
immediately. Gittes pursues the case anyway, slowly uncovering a vast
conspiracy centering on water management, state and municipal corruption,
land use and real estate, and involving at least one murder." [www.imdb.com]

The location shots and cinematography are beautiful. It really gives you the
sense and feel of Los Angeles in the 30's. It's sad to see the locations and
realize that only thirty years later many of them are not there anymore.

The script is tight and spare. There is not a lot of wasted dialogue. Towne
leaves it up to the audience to connect the dots. With Polanski direction,
the viewer is able to piece together many of the plot twists just slightly
ahead of Gittes.

Once you get over the shock of seeing a slim and young Jack Nicholson [not
quite as shocking as his age in The Raven, but even so...], he is truly
delightful to watch. The dialogue is snappy and Nicholson plays it with just
the right amount of sarcastic anti-establishmentarianism.

I am not particularly fond of Faye Dunaway's portrayal, but John Huston as
Noah Cross, her character's father, more than makes up for it. The sense of
power and authority he radiates every time he's on screen just about
squeezes every other actor out of frame. I could eat it up with a spoon.

Five stars. Highly recommended.

Unfortunately, seeing Chinatown first just served to point out all the flaws
in Farewell, My Lovely.

The movie is based on the Raymond Chandler book of the same name and is considered to be the movie version most faithful to the text. However, the story is obviously cut to fit the 95 minute running time and feels rushed. Having not read the original novel, I can’t say for sure that all of the twists and turns of the plot were as telegraphed as the movie, but I suspect not. The dialogue wasn’t bad, for noir-style dialogue. Very reminiscent of the snappy back and forth you’ll find in Sin City, but like most hard-boiled crime fiction dialogue, it just falls onto the floor and lays there like a dead fish if you don’t have the proper delivery.
Robert Mitchum is perfectly suited for the lead role of Philip Marlowe. All he really needs to do is wander around the movie looking tired and down and out. Really, no one does the basset hound look like “Mitch.” Everyone else must have taken their cue from him, though. I can’t point to a single member of the cast that made the slightest impression on me. Jack O’Halloran had less emotional range playing the hulking ex-con Moose Malloy than Richard Kiel as Jaws in Moonraker. Don’t even get me started on Harry Dean Stanton as the quick to anger corrupt police detective.
The entire film looks to be shot on the back lot of the studio. There are a couple of location shots, but as soon as a character steps inside, we’re back on a set. It looks as if everything was filmed with one static camera. One character will say their dialogue and then it cuts to a shot of the other actors reaction.
It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the film. To me it’s just light entertainment and fun to watch Mitchum [the only enjoyable part of the film]. Basically, it has more in common with a made-for-TV movie that a feature film.

Three stars. For Robert Mitchum fans only.