FAREWELL MY LOVELY - DVD review

Novelist Raymond Chandler's quintessential private detective, Philip Marlowe, has probably appeared in more films, played by more actors, than any single character in fiction. Consider among others Humphery Bogart, Dick Powell, George Montgomery, Elliott Gould, James Garner, James Caan, and in "Farewell, My Lovely" the definitive portrayal by Robert Mitchum. Suggesting it is definitive may trouble some Bogart fans, but, indeed, Mitchum is more fully in line with Chandler's original concept.

The year is 1941--Germany has just invaded Russia, DiMaggio is hitting in more consecutive games than any player in baseball, and Marlowe is on a case. Big Moose Malloy, just out of prison after seven years, is looking for his old girlfriend, Velma. He hires Marlowe to find her. In the course of the investigation, Marlowe gets shot at, beaten up, thumped on the head, pumped full of dope, and booked for suspicion of murder. He visits gambling joints, night clubs, fancy mansions, cat houses, and dark alleys; and he gets mixed up with millionaires, crooked politicians, gangsters, hoodlums, all sorts of colorful characters, and a plot that twists and turns in every direction. In other words, its classic private eye territory.

Almost everything about this movie is right. Mitchum is perfect as the world-weary P.I. with a heart as soft as his mattress. His voice-over narration carries with it all the sardonic wisecracks, epigrams, and corny similes one remembers from the books: "I was having some Chinese food when a dark shadow fell over my chop suey." "This car sticks out like a pair of spats in an Iowa picnic." Or "She was giving me the kind of look I could feel in my hip pocket." All of Chandler's tough-guy banter and shifty dialogue are intact, delivered in an effortless drawl that only Mitchum could cultivate. He doesn't so much sound like Marlowe as he is Marlowe.

In addition to the star, there is Charlotte Rampling as a sexy, sultry woman on the make; John Ireland as Lt. Nulty, an honest cop; Harry Dean Stanton as Billy Rolfe, a dishonest cop; Sylvia Miles as Mrs. Florian, a washed-up ex-chorus girl; Anthony Zerbe as Laird Burnette, a big-time operator; Jack O'Halloran as the massive Moose; Joe Spinell and Burton Gilliam as a pair of goons; and Sylvester Stallone in a pre-Rocky bit part as, what else, a hood.

Finally, there are the period Los Angeles locations and the period jazz background music that play as much a part in the film as the characters themselves.

Video:
The powers that be at Pioneer Video, now distributed by Artisan, have not yet done many feature films on DVD, but that doesn't let them off the hook for the generally below-average quality of this disc's picture and sound. The screen ratio is exactly what it has always been on video tape, 1.33:1 pan-and-scan. OK, we can forgive them for this oversight since the squarish size helps to recreate the illusion of an older, 1940's film.

Worse, however, is that anyone's initial impression of the picture quality must be totally negative. The movie starts out at night, and the colors are dark, mostly shades of red and brown, soft, bleared, and over saturated; then you realize the picture is supposed to be that way, at least at first. The focus never improves and the image gets even more grainy as the movie goes on, but the colors finally become more realistic and relatively natural with the coming of daylight, about twenty minutes or so into the story. As for the dim, neon-blurred tones of the opening, I suppose they help set the mood for the old noir films this one emulates.

Audio:
In addition, the sound is below par. It's remastered in Dolby Digital and it's probably the best it could be, but that isn't saying much. It's all midrange monaural--no highs, no lows, all center channel, with some faint yet discernible background noise. It's audio that's more like 1941 than 1975, but, again, if it's looked at charitably it conveys an old-time movie flavor.

Extras:
Beyond the film, there is little else. A scene index with sixteen chapter stops. Nothing more. If the folks at Pioneer want to sell discs, they might consider offering something more than they do here. Unless, of course, buyers are fully aware how good the movie content is, which in this case entirely makes up for the DVD's lack of bonus items and technical merit.

Parting Thoughts:
Mitchum would later reprise the Marlowe role in "The Big Sleep," but to no avail. The Chandler era had been updated from the forties to the present and the location from L.A. to London, thereby depriving the story of two of its most important elements. As far as "Farewell, My Lovely" goes, it's unfortunate about the picture and sound, but until something better in a private-eye yarn comes along, this one is as good as it gets.