| Farewell, My Lovely | |
|---|---|
First edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Raymond Chandler |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Publication date | 1940 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-394-75827-7 |
| OCLC Number | 256294215 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.52 19 |
| LC Classification | PS3505.H3224 F3 1988/1940 |
| Preceded by | The Big Sleep |
| Followed by | The High Window |
Farewell, My Lovely is a 1940 novel by Raymond Chandler, the second novel he wrote featuring Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times.
Contents |
A chance encounter (in late March 1939) with hulking ex-con Moose Malloy on Los Angeles' Central Avenue, the part that is "not yet all negro", gets Marlowe into all kinds of trouble. Just released from prison, Malloy is looking for his one-time girlfriend, red-haired Velma Valento, whom he last saw eight years ago. The nightclub where she used to sing, Florian's, is now a black "dine and dice emporium", and no one there has ever heard of her. Malloy leaves after flinging the black bouncer across the room, and Marlowe is asked by a detective on the case, Nulty, to look for Velma. He learns the address of Florian's widow, a drunken middle-aged floozy, and plies her with some bonded bourbon. She tells him, unconvincingly, that Velma is dead; but he finds a photo of her that the widow Florian was trying to hide from him.
Later that afternoon, Marlowe is hired by Lindsay Marriott, a curly-haired gigolo, to assist in handing over an $8,000 ransom for a rare jade necklace owned by a woman friend of Marriott's. However, at the isolated meeting point—a lonely canyon in the middle of the night—Marlowe is knocked out. When Marlowe comes to, he chances upon a passerby, Anne Riordan, who has found Marriott murdered. Anne takes some marijuana cigarettes off Marriott before Marlowe contacts the police. Later, Anne gives the cigarettes to Marlowe. With Anne's help, Marlowe learns that the owner of the necklace is a Mrs. Grayle. Marlowe visits Mrs. Grayle, a beautiful blonde married to an elderly millionaire, who backs up Marriott's story that she was robbed of the necklace.
Suspicious of Marriott's joints, Marlowe cuts one open and finds the business card of one "Jules Amthor", "Psychic Consultant". Marlowe also learns that the title to the house of Florian's widow was in Marriott's name. Marlowe meets Amthor at the latter's "modernistic" hilltop home. There, Marlowe is beaten up with the help of crooked policemen. Later removed to a "sanitorium", Marlowe is shot full of dope but manages to escape. With a policeman, Marlowe finds Florian's widow murdered in her house. Marlowe makes it to a gambling ship off the coast where he attempts to get word to Malloy that he has information for him.
Marlowe lands back at his Hollywood apartment, takes a nap and awakes to find Malloy there. Mrs. Grayle then arrives while Malloy hides. Mrs. Grayle and Marlowe talk and it becomes clear that Velma and Mrs. Grayle are the same person. It is revealed that after realizing her new identity was in jeopardy from Marlowe's inquiries, she was anxious to stop his investigation. It is implied that she killed Marriott as well (the job done by an "amateur" who put his "brains all over his face"). When she encounters Malloy at the denouement, she kills him and flees. At the end of the novel, Marlowe relates that she committed suicide in Baltimore after her true identity was found out by police there.
Although written after The Big Sleep (1939), Farewell, My Lovely was the first Marlowe story to be filmed. In 1942, The Falcon Takes Over, a 65 minute film, the third in the Falcon series of films revolving around Michael Arlen's gentleman sleuth Gay Lawrence (played by George Sanders), used the plot of Farewell, My Lovely, with Lawrence substituted for Marlowe. Purists agree that fitting the two rather different characters of Marlowe and Lawrence into one seems absurd from today's point of view; however, in 1942, Marlowe was not yet a household word, not yet a fictional character people would immediately recognize, and so at the time many of his habits would not have been known to cinemagoers.
In 1944, Dick Powell played the part of the hard-boiled detective in a classic film noir which was alternatively entitled Murder, My Sweet and Farewell, My Lovely— two years before Humphrey Bogart was offered the role of Philip Marlowe in 1946 for The Big Sleep. Thirty years later, Robert Mitchum starred in a remake of Farewell, My Lovely, again playing the tough private eye.
| The Falcon Takes Over | Murder, My Sweet | Farewell, My Lovely | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year of release | 1942 | 1944 | 1975 |
| Director | Irving Reis | Edward Dmytryk | Dick Richards |
| Screenwriter | Lynn Root and Frank Fenton | John Paxton | David Zelag Goodman |
| Setting | New York | Los Angeles | Los Angeles |
| Philip Marlowe | George Sanders (as "Gay Lawrence") | Dick Powell | Robert Mitchum |
| Helen Grayle | Helen Gilbert (as "Diana Kenyon") | Claire Trevor | Charlotte Rampling |
| Moose Malloy | Ward Bond | Mike Mazurki | Jack O'Halloran |
| Mr. Grayle | — | Miles Mander | Jim Thompson |
| Lindsay Marriott | Hans Conried | Douglas Walton | John O'Leary |
The novel was adapted on BBC Radio 4 by Bill Morrison, directed by John Tydeman and broadcast on 22 September 1988 starring Ed Bishop as Marlowe. BBC Radio 4, as part of its Classic Chandler series, also broadcast on 19 February 2011 a dramatic adaptation by Robin Brooks, with Toby Stephens as the hardboiled detective.
In the first shot after the opening titles of Get Carter, Michael Caine is seen reading a paperback copy of the book. In the opening episode of the television series Bored to Death, Jason Schwartzman's character Jonathan Ames is inspired to become a private detective after reading the book.[1]
A novel's title was used as the subtitle in the japanese version of the video game Sakura Wars V but this reference was lost during translation process.
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