Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Robert Mitchum is one of the great screen presences of all time, and he's also an excellent actor and an excellent Philip Marlowe as he proves in this second adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel (following Murder, My Sweet another excellent private-eye movie from the 40's). One day, in the middle of some voice over narration complete with one-liners, Marlowe runs into a towering hulk of a man named Moose Malloy who is looking for his Velma (a fact he likes to continuously remind Marlowe of). Marlowe agrees to take on the assignment, and wouldn't you know it, finding this Velma dame turns into a tangled web that goes deeper than just a simple missing persons case. Cinematographer, John Alonzo likes to bathe his images with a faint red light that makes the film look as if it was shot in some seedy strip club, and since the conventions of the private-eye film are so familiar to everyone (even those who have never seen a film from the genre), it almost always seems on the brink of falling into self-parody, but fortunately director, Dick Richards along with Mitchum, always manage to keep the film on the safe side of that line. It's actually a strong entry into the genre and probably the best film of its kind in the last 30 years.