Tag Archives: Dick Powell

Murder, My Sweet (1944) Edward Dmytryk, Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1945)
This adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel ‘Farewell, My Lovely’, renamed for the American market to prevent filmgoers mistaking it for a musical (for which Powell was already famous) has private eye Philip Marlowe hired by Moose Malloy, a petty crook just out of prison after a seven year stretch, to look for his former girlfriend, Velma, who has not been seen for the last six years. The case is tougher than Marlowe expected as his initially promising enquiries lead to a complex web of deceit involving bribery, perjury and theft, and where no one’s motivation is obvious, least of all Marlowe’s.
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Pitfall (1948) André De Toth, Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

Pitfall (1948)
John Forbes is a family man who’s tired of the 9 to 5 humdrum of his job an insurance company executive. Life gets a little more exciting for him when he calls upon femme fatale Mona Stevens. Her boyfriend has embezzled from a store insured by Forbes’ company and has showered her with gifts using the loot. Forbes comes to collect the ill-gotten gifts, but the boyfriend is in jail, and Forbes falls hard for Mona and begins an affair. The only problem is that MacDonald, a private dick who freelances for the insurance company, has had his eyes on Mona first. The obsessed MacDonald turns the soon-to-be-released boyfriend against Forbes.
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