I have to confess that I approached this film somewhat predisposed to not liking it. First, I was introduced to the 1975 version of Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely when I was a teenager, and I loved it for the performances by Mitchum, Rampling, Harry Dean Stanton, John Ireland, and Jack O'Halloran. Second, to some extent I bear Dmytryk some antipathy for naming names at the HUAC hearings.
It turned that the first bias really colored my feelings about the film. Frankly, most of the performances are pretty forgettable. Dick Powell is one of the weakest Marlowes ever. Chandler's Marlow is a 38-year old man who makes a living in corrupt Los Angeles as a virtuous and jaded private detective whose understanding of human nature allows him to penetrate the most byzantine of plots hatched by powerful men and alluring femme fatales. Rather, Powell's Marlowe is a grinning idiot and a smug asshole who couldn't survive Chandler's Los Angeles for one day.
The same goes for the other performances. As characters were introduced I kept on thinking that their counterpart in the 1975 Farewell, My Lovely did a much better job. The one exception is Otto Kruger, who does a good job playing the villanous Jules Amthor.
Dmytryk and his cinematographer Harry J. Wild did make a movie that had some nice shots visually, but since Murder, My Sweet, is so plot- and character-driven, it is sunk, in my view, by the poor acting.