Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Dick Powell, Esther Howard, Anne Shirley, Mike Mazurki

This adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel 'Farewell, My Lovely', renamed for the U.S. market to prevent audiences mistaking it for a musical (for which Powell was already famous) has private eye Philip Marlowe "hired" (almost at the point of forcible servitude) by the menacing, thuggish Joe "Moo