Murder, My Sweet

Philip Marlowe takes a job finding the missing girlfriend of a large man just out of prison, and it quickly ties into a lost jewel, a fraudulent psychic and the secrets of a wealthy family. Edward Dmytryk adapted Raymond Chandler's novel. The casting surprised the period: Dick Powell, until then a musical comedy performer, played Marlowe and changed his career entirely. Its most cited passage is the nightmare the drugged detective sees, one of the early sequences that built the visual language of noir. The story is told in flashback from Marlowe's statement, a structure that became close to standard in the genre. Who it is for: viewers who like classic noir and Chandler adaptations. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a followable plot, since the events are deliberately tangled.