The first real adaptation of a Raymond Chandler crime novel was this remarkably faithful version of Farewell, My Lovely, which features former song and dance star Dick Powell as a surprisingly convincing Philip Marlowe. Hired by ex-con Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki) to find his former girlfriend Velma (Claire Trevor), Marlowe is bribed, beaten up and drugged as he finds himself caught up in a web of corruption, blackmail and murder. Made roughly in parallel with Double Indemnity, but for much less money, this was a chance for the creative team involved to demonstrate that they could make a serious mainstream movie which would tap into the public’s desire for strong adult entertainment. Chandler’s brilliant prose, gallery of grotesque characters and scintillating dialogue were sensitively rendered into a lean, mean script by John Paxton and director Edward Dymtyrk. Dymtyrk, whose later career was blighted by the McCarthyist anti-communist witch hunts, brought all his stylistic fair and energy to bear on Murder, My Sweet. The result was a critical and commercial hit that had the effect of making Chandler the hottest scribe in Hollywood.