OVP: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Film: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Stars: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack O'Halloran, Sylvester Stallone

Director: Dick Richards

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Sylvia Miles)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Chinatown is one of my favorite movies (as I get older, it becomes basically impossible to corner my favorite films to more than 4-5 films as it genuinely changes based on the day, but know this would be in contention for the crown).  I have not, however, spent a lot of time focusing on the films that came after the success of Chinatown, and honestly hadn't really thought about the strange history of the neo-noir film in the 1970's, which Chinatown was obviously the crown jewel of, but featured a number of films, some starring very important actors.  That's the case with Farewell, My Lovely, filmed in the wake of Chinatown (which you can tell based on the way the movie is shot), and starring Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe, a role that the actor was taking on for the first time & feels born to play (he is the only actor to have played the part, which saw actors as diverse as Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, James Garner & Elliot Gould take on the role, twice).  While Mitchum is well-cast, the movie itself struggles, not just in comparison to Chinatown, but also in trying to match that film's pacing & plotting twists.

(Spoilers Ahead) Mitchum's Philip Marlowe is hired by bank robber Moose Malloy (O'Halloran) to try to find his old girlfriend Velma, whom he hasn't seen since he got arrested.  Marlowe starts chasing down Velma, initially thinking she's a woman that has been locked up in an asylum, but this appears to be an imposter.  The real Velma we only learn in the last minutes of the film is Helen Grayle (Rampling), the trophy wife of a wealthy local judge.  As the film goes, we learn that Helen was a prostitute who helped with the bank robbery that Moose had perpetrated, though she didn't go to jail for it, and has been slowly killing everyone that is connected with her past in hopes of erasing it, getting to restart her life of privilege with her rich, oblivious husband.  The film ends in a giant shootout on a boat, where pretty much everyone except Marlowe ends up getting shot, and he lives to see another day as a detective, once again wisened by the streets.

That's the plot in a nutshell.  One of the defining characteristics of film noir is that it has a lot of story-there are tons of twists & turns, frequently characters, especially beautiful women you shouldn't trust, & where you start is never where you land.  This is what I love about it-it requires you to expect the unexpected.  But Farewell, My Lovely doesn't handle the extra plot well enough because it seems to be so obsessed with Chinatown.  In some ways this works-the music by David Shire is properly moody & delicious, and the cinematography is gorgeous and I'm surprised wasn't nominated for an Oscar that year.  But while Chinatown's difficult-to-comprehend plot is anchored by three strong performances (as well as Roman Polanski's precise direction), Farewell, My Lovely doesn't have actors ready to gloss over the movie's constant twists, oftentimes throwing in too many characters at once (which makes them difficult to track, and more importantly, difficult to vest into).  This isn't because these aren't great actors (Charlotte Rampling, Harry Dean Stanton...come on, this is a good call sheet), but they aren't able to elevate the material.

This is particularly true for Sylvia Miles, the one Oscar nominee from the film.  Miles is famous in some sections of Film Twitter for delivering two tiny performances that got nominated for an Oscar (her combined Oscar nominations make up less than 13 minutes of screen-time, less than any of the eight women she competed against at either of her Oscar ceremonies), but this isn't one of those mind-blowing cameos that you can't stop raving about.  She gets two scenes, the first as a relatively capable drunk attempting to mine booze from Marlowe (no matter what danger the information she's sharing will bring to her), and the latter scene is a throwaway moment, a return to a character that only left an impression because there's so few women in this movie.  Miles has no bearing on the plot, and honestly feels like the sort of role that people mine meaning from because she's so distinctive, not because she's giving something radiant.  Personally, I would have much rather one of the many women giving sensational turns in Nashville have gotten a third Supporting Actress nod from that film rather than a blink-and-you'll-miss-it return for Miles here.