(NOIR) Murder My Sweet - 1944 ***

I'm concerned that I didn't find this nearly as good as the critics rave about. In fact except for the occasionally funny one liners that Dick Powell comes out with I think that the rest of the film was quite poor. I'm not sure if I like Powell as Philip Marlowe, because to be honest I feel like Bogart IS Marlowe, so it's strange for another actor to take his place, especially one who is well known for singing and playing rom-com parts. He does make quite a good detective however, and is suitably smarmy into the account, but something about his performance just didn't click for me. Claire Trevor was typically beautiful and sultry as the femme fatale, but there was hardly any chemistry between the characters, except for the friendly 'bro-mance' between Marlowe and Malloy.
One to see, but would recommend 'The Big Sleep' with Bogart instead if you want to see Philip Marlowe at his best.

(NOIR) Born to Kill - 1947 ***

I can't say that this was one of the best noirs I have seen but it did have something going for it, and that was the roaring passion of Laurence Tierney and Claire Trevor.

Tierney plays a psychotic con man called Sam who likes killing people when they get in his way. He also has a weird and slightly homosexual relationship with his roommate Marty (played of course by Elisha Cook Jnr) as well as knocking people out left, right and centre if they annoy him. He becomes jealous after finding out the person he is seeing has another boyfriend and promptly 'does them both in.' Que Helen Trent (Trevor) who finds the bodies and doesn't tell anyone, oh except when she goes off to her sister's and casually lets it drop in a conversation. She also becomes fascinated by Sam despite the fact that she is engaged to be married and Sam is a thug and hooligan. Helen's sister is rich and so Sam goes after her, marrying her on a whim a short time later whilst being attracted to Helen. They don't think anything of having a grope in the kitchen in the middle of the night with the light on and the door open.

Things get sticky after a detective is put onto watching Marty and makes Sam believe that Helen is trying to double-cross him when all she wants is to double-cross her sister. This ends with a shoot-out etc, and I'm not telling you anymore. I'e probably told you too much already.

I love how Cook Jnr pops up in mostly all the 40s noir films that I see and nearly always plays the same character, he's like a staple of the film.

A good movie, worth a watch but not a classic.