Jul 29, 2018 The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is noted for its complexity, with many characters double-crossing. The Big Sleep Critics Consensus. A perfect match of screenplay, director, and leading man, The Big Sleep stands as a towering achievement in film noir whose grim vitality remains undimmed.
Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is asked by the elderly General Sternwood (James Stewart) to investigate an attempt at blackmail on one of his daughters. He soon finds that the attempt is half-hearted at best, and seems to be more connected with the disappearance of the other daughter's husband, Rusty Regan (David Savile). Rusty's wife seems unconcerned with his disappearance, further complicating the mystery. Only General Sternwood seems concerned as mobsters and hired killers continue to appear in the path of the investigation. While I haven't read the novel upon which 'The Big Sleep' is based, I have seen the Bogart version.
I really love the original. Bogie-Bacall - what's not to love? However, that version does suffer from Hays Code puritanism that robbed the edge from much of human desires and sexual foibles that obviously suppressed some of the underlying desires and sexual motives. That's where the 1978 version excels - and fails. Let's start with the fails.
In the original, the scenes in the bookshops near the beginning rule with Bogie's use of humour and the electric suggested tryst with Dorothy Malone's character. Sometimes the suggestion can be erotic enough. Perhaps that's why this version skips the fun and the implied sex for another more mundane approach. The other fail is the atmosphere. This version lacks any.
The original's shadows and textures evoked each scene and created moods. This version lacks any specific mood to instead tell a story in almost a heightened reality. The direction does the same, relying on straight-ahead narrative more like a TV movie than a theatrical film. There's so much more here that succeeds. Despite his age, Mitchum is a fine Marlow, more cynical and world-weary than Bogart's version. The script is sharp, full of humour and wry observations.
The biggest improvement is the depiction of sex. Freed of the tyranny of the forties' censorship, scenes like Carmen naked and stoned are much more realistic and make a more satisfying treatment, even if the innuendo is not as predominant.
OK, it's not the classic it could've been. It's still a decent flick to rent or watch on cable. Marlowe is solid, Candy Clark is wonderfully loony, Joan Collins is pure kitsch, Richard Boone plays the essence of evil. It's good to see James Stewart, even if his gentle disposition doesn't quite match the demeanour of a General.
The supporting cast are almost uniformly intriguing and fun to watch. And what a cast! The Big Sleep may be no masterpiece but it is great fun. Relax your expectations and enjoy it for what is - fine entertainment.
Two of the names mentioned most often in ' 'TheBig Sleep' (1946) are Owen Taylor and Sean Regan. One is the chauffeur forthe wealthy Sternwood family. The other is an Irishman hired by old Gen.Sternwood 'to do his drinking for him.' Neither is ever seen alive;Regan has disappeared mysteriously before the movie begins, and Taylor's bodyis hauled from the Pacific after his Packard runs off a pier. Were theymurdered? And does it even matter, since there are five other murders in thefilm?Advertisement.
Oneof the best-known of all Hollywood anecdotes involves the movie's confusingplot, based on the equally confusing novel by.recalls in her autobiography, 'One day Bogie came on the set and said toHoward, 'Who pushed Taylor off the pier?' Everything stopped.' As A.M.Sperber and Eric Lax write in 'Bogart,' 'Hawks sent Chandler atelegram asking whether the Sternwood's chauffeur, Owen Taylor, was murdered ora suicide.
'Dammit I didn't know either,' ' Chandler recalled. AndChandler later wrote to his publisher, 'The girl who played the nymphysister was so good she shattered Miss Bacall completely. Sothey cut the picture in such a way that all her best scenes were left outexcept one. The result made nonsense and Howard Hawks threatened to sue.After long argument, as I hear it, he went back and did a lot ofre-shooting.' Itis typical of this most puzzling of films that no one agrees even on why it isso puzzling. Yet that has never affected 'The Big Sleep's' enduringpopularity, because the movie is about the process of a criminal investigation,not its results.Theprocess follows private eye Philip Marlowe as he finds hisway through the jungle of gamblers, pornographers, killers and blackmailers whohave attached themselves to the rich old general and his tworandy daughters (Bacall and Vickers).
Some bad guys get killed and others getarrested, and we don't much care-because the real result is that Bogart andLauren Bacall end up in each other's arms. 'The Big Sleep' is a luststory with a plot about a lot of other things.Thatcan be seen more clearly now that an earlier version of the film has surfaced.' The Big Sleep' was finished by Warner Brothers in 1945, but held outof release while the studio rushed to play off its backlog of World War IImovies. Meanwhile, ongoing events greatly affected its future. Hawks' 'ToHave and Have Not' (1944), Bacall's screen debut, was an enormous hit, andthe onscreen chemistry between her and Bogart was sizzling ('You know howto whistle, don't you, Steve?
You just put your lips together and blow.' )Bacall then starred opposite in 'Confidential Agent'(1945) and got withering reviews. And she and Bogart were married (she was 20,he was 44).Advertisement. Bacall'spowerful agent, Charles Feldman, who disliked the version he saw, wrote studiohead Jack Warner in desperation, asking that scenes be eliminated, added andreshot. Otherwise, he warned, Bacall was likely to get more bad reviews,damaging the career of a promising star who was married to the studio's biggestmoney-maker.Warneragreed, and Hawks returned to the sound stages with his actors for reshoots.Bacall's book minimizes this process: 'Howard. Did need one more scenebetween Bogie and me.'
Actually, he needed a lot more than that. The 1945release, now restored by archivists at UCLA, is accompanied by a detaileddocumentary showing what was left out and what was brand new when the movie wasfinally released in 1946.WhatFeldman missed, he said, was the 'insolence' that Bacall showed in'To Have and Have Not.'
In the original version of 'The BigSleep,' the relationship between Bogart and Bacall is problematical:Marlowe isn't sure whether he trusts this cool, elegant charmer. The 1946version commits to their romance, and adds among other scenes one of the mostdaring examples of double entendre in any movie up until that time. The newscene puts Bacall and Bogart in a nightclub, where they are only ostensiblytalking about horse racing:Bacall:'.speaking ofhorses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them work out a littlefirst. See if they're front-runners or come from behind.
I'd say you don'tlike to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a lead, take a littlebreather in the back stretch, and then come home free.' Bogart:'You've got a touch of class, butI don't know how far you can go.' Bacall:'A lot depends on who's in thesaddle.' Whatyou sense here is the enjoyable sight of two people who are in love and enjoytoying with one another. The new scenes add a charge to the film that wasmissing in the 1945 version; this is a case where 'studiointerference' was exactly the right thing. The only reason to see theearlier version is to go behind the scenes, to learn how the tone and impact ofa movie can be altered with just a few scenes.
(The accompanying documentaryeven shows how dialog was redubbed to get a slightly different spin.)Advertisement. Asfor the 1946 version that we have been watching all of these years, it is oneof the great film noirs, a black-and-white symphony that exactly reproducesChandler's ability, on the page, to find a tone of voice that keeps itsdistance, and yet is wry and humorous and cares.
Working from Chandler'soriginal words and adding spins of their own, the writers (,and ) wrote one of the most quotable ofscreenplays: It's unusual to find yourself laughing in a movie not becausesomething is funny but because it's so wickedly clever. (Marlowe on the'nymphy' kid sister: 'She tried to sit in my lap while I wasstanding up.' ) Unlike modern crime movies which are loaded with action,'The Big Sleep' is heavy with dialogue-the characters talk and talk,just like in the Chandler novels; it's as if there's a competition to see whohas the most verbal style.MarthaVickers was indeed electric as the kid sister, and all butsteals her scene as a book clerk who finds Marlowe intriguing.
But the 1945version makes it clear Bacall was by no means as bad as Feldman feared she was:She is adequate in most scenes, and splendid in others-but the scenesthemselves didn't give her the opportunities that the reshoot did. In sceneslike the 'racing' conversation she has the dry reserve, the privateamusement, the way of sizing up a man and enjoying the competition, that becameher trademark. It's astonishing to realize she was 20, untrained as an actor,and by her own report scared to death.Bogarthimself made personal style into an art form. What else did he have? He wasn'tparticularly handsome, he wore a rug, he wasn't tall ('I try to be,'he tells Vickers), and he always seemed to act within a certain range. Yet noother movie actor is more likely to be remembered a century from now.
And thefascinating subtext in 'The Big Sleep' is that in Bacall he found hismatch.Youcan see it in his eyes: Sure, he's in love, but there's something else, too. Hewas going through a messy breakup with his wife, Mayo, when they shot thepicture. He was drinking so heavily he didn't turn up some days, and Hawks hadto shoot around him. He saw this coltish 20-year-old not only as his love butperhaps as his salvation.
That's the undercurrent. It may not have been fun tolive through, but it creates a kind of joyous, desperate tension on the screen.And since the whole idea of film noir was to live through unspeakableexperiences and keep your cool, this was the right screenplay for this time inhis life.Advertisement.