Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Farewell, My Lovely Starring Robert Mitchum

This 1975 private eye film stars the incomparable Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's famous PI. It also features Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Jack O'Halloran (as Moose Malloy), Sylvia Miles and Harry Dean Stanton, with a young Sylvester Stallone appearing as a punk gangster. Sly went on to bigger things with his Rocky Balboa franchise. The legendary noir writer Jim Thompson in a cameo as Judge Baxter Wilson Grayle is pretty cool to see. I liked that the movie is a period piece set in Marlowe's L.A. The night photography with the neon is moody and spot on. The jazzy soundtrack sounds like something you'd hear playing in one of the smoky jazz clubs Marlowe visits while he's working the case. I haven't read the Chandler novel of the same name in several years, but the movie plot appears to follow the novel's storyline. I've read a few online reviews observing how Robert Mitchum was too long in the tooth to be playing Phillip Marlowe. That doesn't bother me. In fact, I found it more appealing and realistic. I don't remember what Mitchum thought of the movie from reading his biography Robert Mitchum: "Baby I Don't Care" by Lee Server. I don't think Mitchum was all that crazy about his co-star Charlotte Rampling who'd just made The Night Porter. So, all in all, I go a big thumbs up on this classic Robert Mitchum flick.