Grizzled American private detective in England investigates a complicated case of blackmail turned murder involving a rich but honest elderly general, his two loose socialite daughters, a po... Read allGrizzled American private detective in England investigates a complicated case of blackmail turned murder involving a rich but honest elderly general, his two loose socialite daughters, a pornographer and a gangster.Grizzled American private detective in England investigates a complicated case of blackmail turned murder involving a rich but honest elderly general, his two loose socialite daughters, a pornographer and a gangster.
- Karl Lundgren
- (as Simon Turner)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJames Stewart had difficulty saying his lines on time due to hearing and possibly memory problems. Some of the cast were shocked by his aged appearance. Robert Mitchum recalled, "The picture was all about corpses, but Jimmy looked deader than any of them." Stewart actually outlived Mitchum by one day, nearly 20 years later.
- GoofsWhen Marlowe takes the gun from Camilla after she unloads it on him with multiple blank rounds, he grabs the barrel with his bare hands. That should have proved to be very painful as the barrel would be extremely hot.
EDIT: This is incorrect. Blank cartridges in a small calibre gun will not heat the barrel to any great extent. A gun barrel gets hot mainly due to the friction of the bullet going through the barrel, not from the powder in the cartridge.
- Quotes
Charlotte Sternwood: [when Marlowe declines to blackmail her] Wha-? You don't want money?
Philip Marlowe: Oh sure. All I itch for is money. I'm so greedy that for fifty pounds a day plus expenses on the day I work, I risk my future, the hatred of the cops, of Eddie Mars and his pals, I dodge bullets and put up with slaps and say "Thank you very much. If you have any further trouble please call me: I'll just put my card here on the table." I do all that for a few pounds. And maybe just a little bit to protect what little pride a sick and broken old man has in his family, so that he can believe his blood is not poisoned. That his little girls - though they may be a trifle wild - are not perverts and killers.
- ConnectionsFeatured in James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces of America (2017)
As Monk would say, here's the thing. A masterful job was done in keeping the story within it's 1940s milieu. Except for some things that couldn't be in the film because of the Code and the color photography, Farewell My Lovely could have been shot side by side with the Dick Powell Murder My Sweet. Raymond Chandler's noir world of the forties was recreated brilliantly.
So who was the genius who thought to age Marlowe thirty years and bring him into the swinging seventies of London? Sherlock Holmes was brought to Washington, DC for a war time propaganda piece to the dismay of all Holmes purists. Chandler purists were similarly affronted here.
Sad because a really great cast was wasted in this. One thing I'm sure the audience must have felt is how the American expatriate general played by James Stewart could have one English accented daughter in Sarah Miles and an American accented one in Candy Clark? I'm still scratching my head over that one. English gangster/gambler Oliver Reed employs an American hit man on retainer in Richard Boone. Another puzzle.
It was nice however to see Robert Mitchum and James Stewart in the one and only film they made together. Stewart's only scenes in the film are with Mitchum and when the two Hollywood icons died in successive days in 1997 clips from The Big Sleep were running for a week.
I don't need to give any plot details for those who've seen the fabulous Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall version. If you want to stargaze, watch this film, if you want to see some classic performances don't miss the Bogart one.
- bkoganbing
- Sep 27, 2006
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Tote schlafen besser
- Filming locations
- Knebworth House, Knebworth, Hertfordshire, England, UK(Sternwood Mansion)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- £3,000,000 (estimated)