An Influence on my Novel: Murder My Sweet

It's getting around to holiday card season again. Yes, we still do holiday cards in this little two-person family, and my ritual for some reason is to spread all the cards and envelopes and stamps and my list out around me on the bed and put a film noir on the TV, one that I know so well that it doesn't distract me, just runs in the background like some cozy accompaniment as I address my envelopes and write out my notes.

It's sort of like my version of Christmas music.

Sometimes I go with Scarlet Street, sometimes Too Late for Tears. I think this year, in honor of my book that just came out, I'll switch on Murder, My Sweet. 

I set out to write a novel through the lens of old-time radio detective shows, and I did, but I couldn't help but be influenced by film noir as well—and Murder, My Sweet in particular. It's based on the novel Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, and Chandler was the master of the campy noir language that my favorite old-time radio detective shows are full of—and which I based my own novel's narrative voice on. 

It's also one of the few classic detective noirs out there. Most people, when they think of film noir, picture a detective alone in his office at night, a neon sign blinking in the window behind him, maybe a bottle of whisky in his top desk drawer. The door opens and in walks a seductive femme fatale.

There are actually very few film noirs that center around the classic detective scenario. But Murder, My Sweet is one. It even has one of those late-night office scenes with the neon light in the window and everything. Although the person who enters is no femme. 

Detective Philip Marlowe (played by Dick Powell) is hired by hulking hood "Moose" Malloy (played by Mike Mazurki) to track down his girl Velma, who disappeared while he was away on a stint in the big house. There are other subplots as well. The film is complicated and convoluted and zany and I love it. For too many reasons to go into now. What I came here to do was talk a little bit about how Murder, My Sweet influenced my novel, and to share a few easter eggs I put in there to celebrate one of my favorite films.

I should mention that my novel Who Killed One the Gun? is not just a classic old-time detective story. My detective, One the Gun, also happens to live in a world where people have numbers for names (Two the True Blue, Three the Goatee...), and he also happens to be stuck in a time loop and trying to solve his own murder. Which might give you an idea why I am in love with a movie that I call complicated and convoluted and zany. 

As I said, Murder, My Sweet was a big influence, because of its classic gumshoe vibe and the terrific Raymond Chandler language: the mid-century slang, the world-weary tone, the colorful metaphors:

She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink. If she had to knock you down to get the bottle.

Alright, this example isn't kind to its subject, and is pretty flippant about alcoholism, but I couldn't help but quote it, if only so that I could mention the great character turn of Jessie Florian, played by the fabulous Esther Howard. But it's also a good example of the language style I'm talking about.

But beyond the broader ways in which the film influenced the book, there are a few much more specific ways.

#1
Moose.

At a recent reading event, I was asked by someone in the audience who I thought would play my detective One the Gun in the theoretical movie of my book. I had to say that honestly I didn't know, but that I did know who would play one of my main suspects, the hulking doorman Four the Door.

When I wrote the part of Four the Door, I was thinking of two people, a radio actor named Tony Barrett, and, from Murder, My Sweet, Moose Malloy, played by Mike Mazurki.

The name's Moose. On account of I'm large.

You can't help but be drawn to the character of Moose Malloy. Huge, powerful, but childlike. There's an innocence to his demeanor—and then just as quickly as a child can turn from teddy bear to tantrum, Moose Malloy can get violent.

Four the Door's initial description in my novel:

Six and a half feet tall if he’s a day, a moose of a man who’s built more like a bouncer than a doorman. Even sitting down he’s a towering hulk, all chest and shoulders, but something in his face, some puppy-dog slant in the way he looks at you, makes it seem like he doesn’t at all notice his advantage.

One the Gun, who's drawn to using nicknames on people, calls Four the Door the moose throughout the book in an outright nod to the film.

#2
Language.

Alright, I already brought up language, but there are two places in the book where I use language that specifically references the movie.

For the first instance, we'll stick with the moose for a second. To set this up, in my book, my detective One the Gun is on the murder case of a dive owner named Five the No Longer Alive. (It's One the Gun's investigation of this case that leads to Gun's own murder, which naturally he would also like to solve.) Because Gun is in a time loop, every night at the same time, he goes to the dive, and there he's greeted at the entrance by the doorman Four the Door:

“Business good tonight?” he asks.

“Sure, sure,” Four the Door says, “folks been coming by to make with the respects. Look at all them flowers there in the corner.”

“Very nice,” One the Gun says.

“Prettier than pink ballerinas!” Four the Door says.

Fans of film noir may already know what I'm getting at with that last line. It's a twist on one of the most beloved lines in Murder, My Sweet. From Moose's description of his lost lady Velma.

She was cute as lace pants.

The second piece of dialogue that I reference from Murder, My Sweet, is longer. In my book, there's a detective radio show that comes on every Friday night (and since Gun is in a time loop, it comes on every night), called Who Is the Villain?. When I wrote the narration for that radio show, I slipped in an allusion to my personal favorite line in Murder, My Sweet. Here's the quotation from the film:

I'd been out peeking under old Sunday sections for a barber named Dominick whose wife wanted him back—I forget why. Only reason I took the job was because my bank account was trying to crawl under a duck.

And my own version, with more numbers and fewer names:

I’d just returned to the office after a day snooping under old garbage can lids for some zero named Fourteen who’d been eighty-sixed by his wife, who now suddenly wanted him back. Who could say why? It was a worthless job for a worthless client, but it was better than shining up the vacancy sign in my wallet.

I was proud of all the number-play I piled into that paragraph, but I'm well aware of the fact that nothing, but nothing, will ever be a better landing than the word duck.

#3
Philip Marlowe's shirt.

As a book designer, I was very lucky to be given the chance to design my own book cover. It also gave me the chance to hide one more Murder, My Sweet easter egg in my book.

Now, go with me on this one. It's a bit of a stretch. Or. It's not a stretch, but you have to use your imagination a little.

I devised a cover that would reference old pulp novels and film noir movie posters. At the center of it would be One the Gun lying dead (well, about to be dead—in that moment before the time loop takes him back to the beginning of his day) against a swirling clock. To build the figure in the position I wanted, I found images of bodies and started to piece them together to form one.

For the middle of the body, on impulse, I jumped onto YouTube and put on a scene from Murder, My Sweet, stopping and starting the scene and taking screen shots of Dick Powell's Philip Marlowe in spots where I thought the angle would work.

This is in a scene in which Marlowe has been abducted, taken to a sanatorium, and pumped full of drugs. His clothes are disheveled, perfect for my fallen, newly just-about-murdered detective. I took the screen shot I liked best and maneuvered it into place...

Then added Marlowe's shirt to my body-in-progress. There were more pieces and steps than this as I assembled my One the Gun, but you can see that as he came together, Marlowe's shirt came with him.

There are definitely references to other favorite noirs and radio shows in and on my book, but I'll leave it there. If you haven't seen it, seek out and watch Murder, My Sweet. It's a great film packed full of snappy dialogue, colorful characters, and terrific black and white chiaroscuro cinematography. It's well worth watching, whether you're addressing holiday cards or not.