Richard Eder of The New York Times described the film as "a handsome mediocrity" with an ending that "may produce some confusion," though he praised "the high quality of a lot of the acting". [14] noir είναι αυτό: ο νομιμόφρονας και αγαθός πολίτης μπαίνει σε δυσώδη μονοπάτια που δε θα περπατήσει ποτέ, δε θα αντιληφθεί ποτέ ότι συμβαίνουν ενώ αυτός κοιμάται μακάριος στο δεξί πλευρό, δε θα περάσει ούτε ξυστά από δίπλα γιατί πολύ απλά η απόσταση που τον χωρίζει από αυτά μετριέται σε πλανήτες. Ή και μπορεί να συμβαίνουν σε ένα παράλληλο σύμπαν, μόλις στη διπλανή πόρτα.

The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mail bag and was served to me by a waiter who looked as if he would slug me for a quarter, cut my throat for six bits and bury me at sea in a barrel of concrete for a dollar and a half, plus sales tax.” Così si designano nell’ambiente poliziesco gli afroamericani poiché proprio come gli scarafaggi sono esseri infimi non degni di rientrare nella cerchia umana. Un caso, pertanto, che appare di quart’ordine tanto che neppure la stampa si scomoda a scriverne un trafiletto. Di mezzo, però, c’è la scomparsa dell’affascinante Vilma e lei è bianca e di questo sì che vale la pena occuparsi. Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.”–Robert B. Parker, The New York Times Book ReviewI needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.'

Tre stelle per aver dato i natali al genere hard boiled dimostrando coraggio nel descrivere la corruzione morale in un’epoca di censure. Un autore amato come dimostrano commenti e votazioni dei lettori ma probabilmente non è il genere di lettura che mi manda in estasi.The first 1/4 is quite slow, clumsy even (see below). But then it quite suddenly gets wonderful. I wish I could know what happened to Chandler to wake him up. The prose suddenly soars. Farewell, My Lovely, like many of Chandler's novels, was written by what he called cannibalising previous short stories [2]—taking previously written short stories and altering them to fit together as a novel. This practice is sometimes known as a fix-up. In this case the three stories were "Try the Girl", "Mandarin's Jade", and "The Man Who Liked Dogs". [ citation needed] When embarking on a night’s work he makes the observation, “I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance. I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.” Because of the involvement of the Bay City cops whom Amthor called in, Marlowe visits the corrupt Bay City police chief, John Wax, who brushes him off until Marlowe mentions that he has been hired by Mrs Grayle. Marlowe is then told that Malloy may be hiding out on a gambling boat anchored beyond the three-mile limit and run by Brunette, who also controls the corrupt city government in Bay City. Marlowe sneaks on board with the help of Red Norgaard, another honest cop fired by Bay City, and despite being caught by Brunette, persuades him to pass a message through his criminal network to Malloy.

Steve: Actually, that’s often how it works with me – seemingly on point for brief spurts before devolving into flapdoodle. Besides, I just thought of another one: Lucille Ball + Desi Arnaz. They’d be Ba, Bu, bu, b… I'm watching the 1975 version with Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, Sylvia Miles, the late and wonderful Harry Dean Stanton and (surprise!) Sylvester Stallone! This started well, although Mitchum is much, much too old to play Marlowe. Update: It turns out this book is a (clumsy) conglomeration of three of Chandler’s previous short stories:

He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of characters, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks—that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.