Dick Powell
The role of Philip Marlowe turned Dick Powell’s career around. He first rose to fame in Hollywood as a lighthearted song and dance man playing the romantic lead in a string of Busby Berkeley musicals. When those film suddenly went out of style, Powell stood to watch his career leave town with them. Instead, in one of the most stunning reversals of image in Hollywood history, Murder, My Sweet turned him into one of the iconic hardboiled heroes of film noir.
Claire Trevor
Although she had already played several tough-talking dames prior to the role of Helen Grayle, Murder My Sweet was something of a breakthrough role for Trevor as well. Over the next four years, Trevor would make seven movies, six of which were film noir. The sixth of those movies would be Key Largo for which she would be honored with the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Anne Shirley
Breaking the streak of actors for whom Murder, My Sweet was the start of something big, for Anne Shirley the film was the end. Literally. She would not make another movie after this one.
Otto Kruger
For Otto Kruger, the film was just another attempt to reveal his versatility. Over the course of a film career that stretches from the silent to the arrival of television, Otto Kruger appeared in movies featuring characters ranging from Dracula to Tarzan while he played everything from a cagey liberal lawyer battling systemic racism in the South to a series of Nazi scum.
Mike Mazurki
A lot of people know Mike Mazurki as the big hulking Igor into whose body Ginger Grant’s personality gets transmitted in a classic episode of Gilligan’s Island. Other recognize him as the big, bulky target of Lou Costello’s practical jokes or as one of Dick Tracy’s gruesome villains. He had that look about him, but by all accounts in real life he was the exact opposite of his appearance: soft-spoken, exceptionally well-read, thoroughly engaging in conversation and—according to Costello—one of the funniest men on the planet. None of that comes through in his portrayal of Moose Malloy, proving he was also a very committed actor.
Douglas Walton
Walton was the perfect actor to play Lindsay Marriott. In fact, he pretty much made an entire career out of playing similarly effeminate and soft-spoken men.
Esther Howard
Like Walton, Howard’s casting was an example of stereotyping. Howard’s career included far more blowsy, drunken women of less than high repute than she might well care to remember. Or maybe not; after all, she was always terrific when called upon to play characters like Jessie.
