August 8, 1975 –
AVCO Embassy Pictures released Farewell, My Lovely, a film adaptation of the classic Raymond Chandler novel of the same name. The film starred Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Harry Dean Stanton, Joe Spinell, Sylvester Stallone, Jack O’Halloran, and even featured a cameo by hardboiled crime novelist Jim Thompson.
The gambling boat Lido featured in the film is one of two described in Raymond Chandler’s original novel. These fictional boats were based on real-life vessels that operated just beyond the three-mile offshore limit, placing them outside California’s legal jurisdiction. As a result, they functioned with near impunity as floating casinos. At the time, California Attorney General Earl Warren attempted to extend the jurisdiction to 12 miles in order to shut them down. However, the effort failed when attorneys for the boat owners successfully argued that the starting point for measuring a 12-mile limit was not clearly defined. A 12-mile limit would have effectively ended their operations, since a round-trip water taxi ride of that distance would be impractical for a night’s entertainment. Earl Warren would later become nationally prominent as the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and the head of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Haus of Dcaligari 