I've never been much of a fan of Dick Powell the singer, but I really like Dick Powell, the hard-boiled detective. And here he is as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, the film version of Raymond Chandler's novel, Farewell, My Lovely. Powell was a risky choice for director Edward Dmytryk, who, like everyone else in the world, thought of Powell as a sweet, drippy singer in comic musicals. Studio executives didn't want to take any chances either, and butched up the title from Farewell, My Lovely, to Murder, My Sweet, lest the average moviegoer think they were in for another Goldiggers franchise when they would actually be getting Powell ogling Claire Trevor's shapely leg (without bursting into song) and running around a mental hospital socking people.

But this is, indeed, a murder mystery, so there's dames and thugs and gats and jewels and intrigue. It starts with Philip Marlowe being grilled by police detectives about some murders. The rest of the picture is Marlowe's testimonial flashback that begins in his noir-lit office where he is lamenting his financial situation, when the wonderful Mike Mazurki as Moose Malloy, a Great Ape, shows up fresh out of prison to hire Marlowe to find his girlfriend, Velma, who hasn't written to him for some years.  Moose has money, as well as great height and strength, so Marlowe goes with him to check out Velma's last place of employment. They hit a dead end, but Marlowe gets a lead from the boozy former owner of the clip joint where Velma used to work. So far it looks like Velma is dead, but Marlowe ain't so sure.

When he gets back to his office, he finds a nattily dressed man named Marriott (Douglas Walton), pawing over the papers on his desk. This guy wants to hire Marlowe to help him buy back some stolen jewels for a friend, but at the meeting place, the fancy man is killed and Marlowe is "sapped" unconscious. When he wakes, he finds that someone has taken the payoff money from his pockets, but left him his gun. Cops are called; Marlowe is grilled.

Meanwhile, a lovely young woman comes to his office posing as a reporter to get some dirt on the dead man and the jewels. She turns out to be Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley), the daughter of a wealthy jade collector (Miles Mander), who is married to Helen (Claire Trevor), a woman a couple of decades younger than he. Turns out that Helen was stepping out with Marriott when the very expensive jewels she was wearing at the time were stolen from her. It also turns out that the dead man had been undergoing psychic (not psychiatric) treatment under spiritualist Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger), a guy you know is up to no good.

How are these two cases related? I'll give you a hint: Moose Malloy does some thugging for Dr. Amthor on the side and is responsible for another clobbering Marlowe receives and the wild, drug-induced dream sequence Marlowe experiences while being held hostage and off the trail for several days.

I won't spoil the whole thing, but I will tell you that Marlowe is romanced by both Helen and Ann, is beaten by several people, and is present at a few more murders before the picture ends. Claire Trevor exhibits a coldness she usually never employs, as she usually plays the salt-of-the-earth fallen woman type; this time she just fell. Also, Dick Powell looks good with a few days' beard growth. It stabilizes that wobbly chin.

On a final note, if you want this mystery to retain some mystery, don't look it up in IMDb first, because there's a huge plot giveaway in the credit list.

There is a very warm and thorough biographical sketch of Anne Shirley on IMDb, which I recommend to you, in lieu of my having to gratuitously paraphrase it here. 

Anne Shirley was one of those quiet, excellent child actors who played the younger version of whichever Hollywood actress was actually starring in a picture, or as that star's daughter. If you happen to catch her in anything before 1934 — and there were 31 pictures to choose from — she'd be credited as "Dawn O'Day," one of several stage names she was given as a toddler model. What was wrong with her given name, Dawn Paris, I don't know.

Shirley became a reliable bit player in feature films from the age of four, getting more and more notice as she grew into a beautiful teenager. Although she only appears briefly in the pre-Code Barbara Stanwyck vehicle, The Purchase Price (1932), her performance as a terrified farm girl is arresting. That same year, she played the young Ann Dvorak in Three On a Match, and manages to convey the discontent and fragility that overtake the adult character in her few short scenes.

The actress took the name "Anne Shirley" from the film that made her a star, Anne of Green Gables, changing it legally and professionally when she turned 16. And like good contract players, she made three to six pictures a year, most of them excellent, but in spite of critically successful performances, Anne Shirley never quite reached the level of stardom one would have hoped. Growing tired of the Hollywood grind and with one failed marriage behind her (to handsome John Payne) and one on the rocks (to soon-to-be-blacklisted producer and screenwriter, Adrian Scott) she retired from movies in 1944 at the age of 26.

She did go out with a bang, as it were; her last picture was the film noir classic, Murder, My Sweet, a hell of a high note.

Anne Shirley's third marriage to screenwriter Charles Lederer in 1949 was a happy one that lasted until his death in 1976. She lived the rest of her days in Hollywood as a painter and socialite. She died July 4, 1993 from lung cancer at the age of 75.

Her birthday is this Saturday, so why not screen something like So Big! or any of these others to celebrate?

It's easy to picture Barbara Stanwyck as a torch-singing gangster's girl; not so a farmer's wife. And she feels exactly the same way in The Purchase Price, a pre-Code weirdie in which she plays Joan Gordon, nightclub singer and girlfriend to bootlegger, Eddie Fields (Lyle Talbot.)

After it's established that Joan has been singing up and down Broadway since she was a teenager, we see her give Eddie a very collegial brush-off, explaining that she's going to marry into society and leave all this thuggery behind. A few moments later, the chap in question calls off the wedding, because he has learned that she has been running around with Eddie, and that just won't do. So Joan grudgingly goes back to the gangster (who's already married), soon gets fed up and beats it to Montreal after seeing a picture of it in a newspaper. Unfortunately, Eddie's lackeys find her singing under an assumed name, and she has to find a way to skip town again. As it happens (and there being no handy newspaper clippings), Joan's maid is leaving to marry a Nebraska farmer whom she met through a marriage broker, but confesses that she sent Joan's picture instead of her own to sweeten the pot. Thus, with the same deliberation she gave to moving to Canada, Joan decides to trade places with the maid and marry this guy in Nebraska.

This is all in the first 10 minutes. It goes on in fits and starts from there.

The farmer turns out to be George Brent (miscast), awkward agricultural-school graduate Jim Glison, a man who expects to sleep with a woman on the first day he met and married her, then holds a grudge when she rebuffs him. Meanwhile, Joan makes a spectacular adjustment to the awful, awful circumstances, conditions, and people in her new community. She cooks, she cleans, she makes the wood stove work (see The Egg and I), and for some reason, falls in love with Sulky Jim.

There are ups. There are downs. There is an unpleasant local muckity muck who keeps trying to take over Jim's farm (and fondle Joan). Eddie turns up as well, but only to prove to the audience that Joan would have had way more fun with him. Oh, and an oddly-affecting scene in which Joan helps a neighbor woman newly-delivered of a baby and her terrified older daughter (the great Anne Shirley), who no doubt witnessed her mother giving birth. THAT's the movie I wish this had been.

The Purchase Price reminded me at times of The Canadian, the 1926 film about a city girl forced by circumstances to marry a farmer with no mod-cons (and precursor to the excellent Victor Seastrom/Lillian Gish picture, The Wind). Same 'wedding night' standoff. Same cross-cultural adjustment horrors. Same eventual reconciliation and marital harmony, if a more believable one. At other times, the film reminded me that 68 minutes can seem like four days.

All in all, an uneven, interesting picture that underscores Barbara Stanwyck's ability to make long-johns and work gloves unbelievably attractive. Also that unless the non-gangster is Gary Cooper, she should stick with the affable bootlegger.