PHFS presents: "Farewell, My Lovely", 1975, @ The Steamer No. 10 Theater.

"Los Angeles, 1941. A run-down street of seedy shop fronts and blinking neon signs. Music from somewhere features a lonely horn. The camera pans up to a second-story window of a flophouse. In the window, his hat pushed back, his tie undone, Philip Marlowe lights another cigarette and waits for the cops to arrive. He is ready to tell his story.

These opening shots are so evocative of Raymond Chandler’s immortal Marlowe, archetypical private eye, haunting the underbelly of Los Angeles, that if we’re Chandler fans we hold our breath. Is the ambience going to be maintained, or will this be another campy rip-off? Half an hour into the movie, we relax. “Farewell, My Lovely” never steps wrong.

And neither does Robert Mitchum, in what becomes his definitive performance. Mitchum is one of the great screen presences, and at 57 he seems somehow to be just now coming of age: He was born to play the weary, cynical, doggedly romantic Marlowe. His voice and his face and the way he lights his cigarette are all exactly right, and seem totally effortless. That’s his trademark. In a good Mitchum performance, we are never aware he is acting. And it is only when we measure the distances between his characters that we can see what he is doing.

If you are a fan of Raymond Chandler, classic noir and Robert Mitchum, this is the movie for you.

Suggested donation: $5"

The above description is taken from the Pine Hills Film Society's e-mail.