Farewell, My Lovely (1975 film)

Farewell, My Lovely is a 1975 film about Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe who is hired by paroled convict Moose Malloy to find his girlfriend Velma, a former seedy nightclub dancer.
 * Directed by Dick Richards. Written by David Zelag Goodman, based on the 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler.

I need another drink...I need a lot of life insurance...I need a vacation...and all I've got is a coat, a hat, and a gun!

Philip Marlowe

 * [voiceover, opening lines] This past spring was the first that I felt tired and realized I was growing old. Maybe it was the rotten weather we'd had in L.A. Maybe the rotten cases I'd had. Mostly chasing a few missing husbands and then chasing their wives once I found them, in order to get paid. Or maybe it was just the plain fact that I am tired and growing old.
 * [voiceover] The house itself wasn't much. It was smaller than Buckingham Palace and probably had fewer windows than the Chrysler building.
 * [voiceover] She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.
 * [voiceover, to himself] You've been beaten up, slapped, shot full of hop until you were as crazy as two waltzing mice; now let's see you do something really tough, like getting up.
 * [voiceover] It was one of those transient motels, something between a fleabag and a dive.
 * [voiceover] I sparred with the night clerk for a couple of minutes, but it was like trying to open a sardine can after you broke off the metal lip. There was something about Abraham Lincoln's picture that loosened him up.
 * [on being shaken by the lapels] Now wait a minute. I've been slapped, scratched, punched, knocked unconscious, drugged, and shot at, looking for your Velma, so quit trying to make a milkshake out of my insides, will you?
 * [looking at the dead bodies of Moose and Velma] Moose never would have hurt her. It didn't matter to him that she hadn't written in 6 years. It didn't matter that she turned him in for a reward. The big lug loved her... and if he was still alive... it wouldn't matter to him that she'd pumped 3 bullets into him... What a world.

Other

 * Billy Rolfe: You're not a detective, Marlowe, you're a slot machine. You'll do anything for six bits.

Dialogue

 * Moose Malloy: You a private Dick?
 * Philip Marlowe: No. I'm your fairy godmother.


 * Philip Marlowe: What was she like... this Velma?
 * Moose Malloy: Cute... cute as lace pants.


 * Lt. Nulty: [during an interrogation] All right, Marlowe, let's start again, huh? From the beginning.
 * Philip Marlowe: I've told you twice. Now, why don't I make it easy on all of us and tell you what you want to hear? This fairy hired me to exchange a necklace for cash for a friend of his. We drove out to the woods. I shot him. I buried the fifteen grand. I drove my car back to his place, walked fifteen miles back to the woods, knocked myself on the head and then called the police.


 * Frances Amthor: I think you're a very stupid person. You look stupid, you're in a stupid business, and you're on a stupid case.
 * Philip Marlowe: I get it. I'm stupid.

Cast

 * Robert Mitchum - Philip Marlowe
 * Charlotte Rampling - Helen Grayle
 * John Ireland - Lt. Nulty
 * Sylvia Miles - Jessie Halstead Florian
 * Anthony Zerbe - Laird Brunette
 * Harry Dean Stanton - Detective Billy Rolfe
 * Jack O'Halloran - Moose Malloy
 * Joe Spinell - Nick
 * Sylvester Stallone - Jonnie
 * Kate Murtagh - Frances Amthor
 * John O'Leary - Lindsay Marriott
 * Walter McGinn - Tommy Ray
 * Jim Thompson - Judge Baxter Wilson Grayle