February 18, 2013

43 CMBA Blogathon: The Big Sleep (1946)

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Country: US
Director: Howard Hawks

When the Classic Movie Blog Association announced that the topic of their February blogathon would be the Fabulous Films of the 1940s, I knew almost immediately which film I wanted to write about. For me Humphrey Bogart is the preeminent American actor of the forties, and nothing in American film of the forties captures the postwar zeitgeist of that decade like film noir. So I quickly narrowed down the possibilities to the movies in which those two forces, Bogart and film noir, converge. Throw Lauren Bacall, Howard Hawks, and Raymond Chandler into the mix, and one film stood apart from the rest: The Big Sleep from 1946.

Published in 1939, Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep features as its protagonist and narrator one of the great characters of detective fiction, private investigator Philip Marlowe. Although The Big Sleep was the first novel Chandler wrote, the 1946 movie directed by Howard Hawks wasn't the first film version of a Philip Marlowe novel. Two of the books were loosely adapted as installments in the Falcon and Michael Shayne series of B-movies—Farewell, My Lovely as The Falcon Takes Over (1942) and The High Window as Time to Kill (1942). Nor was Bogart the first person to play Philip Marlowe. In 1944 Farewell, My Lovely was filmed by RKO under the title Murder, My Sweet with Dick Powell as Marlowe. (It was Powell's first dramatic film, and the studio was afraid the original title might lead audiences to expect a musical romance.) Several other actors would go on to play Chandler's archetypal hard-boiled private eye, but as good as some of those were—in particular Powell, and many years later Robert Mitchum—for me Humphrey Bogart will always be the definitive Philip Marlowe, just as The Big Sleep will always be for me the definitive Philip Marlowe movie.

The first half hour or so of The Big Sleep follows Chandler's novel closely, with much of the dialogue, settings, action, and even the behavioral quirks of the characters taken directly from the book. Private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is summoned to the mansion of an ailing elderly millionaire, General Sternwood. The general is the father of two spoiled tearaway daughters in their twenties, Vivian (Lauren Bacall) and Carmen (Martha Vickers). The younger daughter Carmen is actually quite a bit more than that—a thumb-sucking, drug-addicted nymphomaniac—and the general wants Marlowe to deal with an attempt to blackmail him over Carmen's scandalous behavior. At the same time, he speaks wistfully to Marlowe about a young confidant of his, a former Prohibition rum-runner named Sean Regan, who has been missing for a month. The general's older daughter Vivian also seems for some reason interested in the disappearance of Regan, and even though Marlowe hasn't been hired to find Regan, his curiosity and suspicion are aroused to the point that he begins to investigate this on his own.

From this point on, the movie follows the novel much less closely. The screenplay retains many elements of the novel's plot but reorganizes them, often using these as a starting point but altering them freely and using them in its own way. One reason for these alterations is that the novel deals with subjects which under the Production Code could never have been used in a movie—among other things homosexuality, drugs, pornography, and police corruption (which Chandler presents as pervasive). Some of these things are hinted at in the film but could be difficult to spot unless you've read the novel, and there's no doubt that the necessary coyness about these subjects compromises the plot's coherence. The screenwriters—there were three credited writers, William Faulkner, Jules Furthman, and Leigh Brackett—do, however, manage to preserve the flippant, hard-edged spirit of Chandler's novel.

The version of The Big Sleep we are familiar with, released in August 1946, is not the only version of the film. Most of the film was shot between late 1944 and early 1945. But Warners held off releasing it so that Lauren Bacall's next film, Confidential Agent, could be rushed into release before the end of World War II made the wartime theme of Confidential Agent unappealing to war-weary moviegoers. This delay gave the studio and Hawks time to reconsider The Big Sleep in light of the huge popularity of Bogart and Bacall the year before in Hawks's To Have and Have Not. The screenwriters had already added to Chandler's plot a romance between the characters played by Bogart and Bacall (in the book there is no romance between them and in fact Bacall's character is married to the missing Sean Regan) and also had written Bacall into the film's climactic sequence. The upshot of the film's delayed release was the decision to beef up even further Bacall's part and the romantic encounters in the film between her and Bogart. To accomplish this, the screenwriter and script doctor Philip G. Epstein was brought in to revise scenes and write additional scenes, uncredited, which were filmed a year after the original shoot.

The first or pre-release version of The Big Sleep was shown in 1945 to U.S. soldiers overseas, but that version was largely forgotten until it was restored in 35mm by the UCLA Film & Television Archives in 1996. Both versions are included on the DVD of the film released by Warner Home Video in 2006, and they make a fascinating comparison. Although it trims and tweaks individual scenes here and there, the release version pretty much follows the narrative organization of the pre-release version. There are two major differences, though, and in both cases they are clear improvements.

An entire five-minute long sequence in the middle of the film that takes place in the District Attorney's office was eliminated. In this scene Marlowe does explain to the D.A. what has happened so far, but he doesn't include any information an observant viewer wouldn't already be aware of. Contrary to some accounts I've read, he doesn't explain the one murder that nobody involved in the film could figure out who was responsible for. (This is the murder of the Sternwoods' chauffeur, which to be fair, was never accounted for in the novel. This probably explains why Chandler, when consulted by Hawks about this point, is famously said to have replied that he didn't know who the killer was either.) The release version substitutes for the scene in the D.A.'s office an entirely new scene between Bogart and Bacall in a restaurant. The new sequence not only gives them more screen time together (as well as softening Bacall's character a bit and making her seem less aloof), but also ramps up the sexual attraction between them. This in turn makes the romantic resolution at the end seem less contrived and hasty than in the pre-release version.
The restaurant scene in the release version
Even better is an expanded and reshot sequence in the middle of the film involving an encounter between Bogart and Bacall in Marlowe's office. In the shorter original version, Bacall wears a dowdy suit and an extraordinarily unbecoming hat that has her peering through a black veil the entire time. The reshot sequence substitutes a more stylish suit and a simple black beret, which not only improves her appearance tremendously, but also gives her a jaunty air that complements Epstein's bantering dialogue. In the new version of the office scene, Bacall, angry at Bogart, picks up the phone and calls the police, whereupon Bogart snatches the phone away from her and uses double talk to confuse the desk sergeant who answered. Bacall snatches the phone back, but instead of going through with the call she immediately joins Bogart in a memorable double-talk routine performed at the lightning pace of one of Hawks's screwball comedies. Apart from the erotic current running through it—it's like a form of sublimated sex—the routine wouldn't seem out of place in a Marx Brothers or Abbot and Costello picture, and Bogart and Bacall perform it with complete aplomb. With their precision timing and instinctive responsiveness to each other, they're like a pair of vaudeville partners who've been working together for years. It's one of the high points of the movie.
The pre-release version of the office scene
The release version of the office scene














When the auteurist film critics of the 1950s and 1960s first began discussing the idea that certain directors leave their personal mark on their work so distinctly that they can be considered the "author" of their films, one of the directors most often cited as an example was Howard Hawks. The Big Sleep makes it easy to see why, for it's a wonderful showcase for Hawks's strengths as a director. Above all, this means his prowess at telling a story visually without becoming intrusive. Hawks was a master of narrative momentum, and everything he does in The Big Sleep—staging, framing, camera placement and movement, editing, the image that moves the story forward, the conversation that defines character and relationship—is calculated to sustain that momentum.

Dialogue this good really shows how impressive is Hawks's way of staging conversations. He rarely relies on the tedious back-and-forth of over-the-shoulder shots during long passages of conversation, but instead consistently finds imaginative and kinetic ways of visualizing these. Hawks also has a way of using the pace and rhythm of his actors' line readings to bring out the nuances of the dialogue. He has a wonderful sense of the simultaneous seriousness and absurdity of many of the situations in the film as well, a trait that makes him seem quite modern in comparison to most studio directors of the time. Hawks's use of setting to create ambience also comes through strongly in the film. The sweltering orchid house at the Sternwood mansion; Bacall's huge, overdecorated white-on-white bedroom; the blackmailer's Oriental-fantasy cottage in the Hollywood Hills; the slick, country club-like gambling den where Bacall plays roulette—all these places are conceived and used for the maximum atmospheric effect.

Yet for all its other strengths, it's doubtful that The Big Sleep would be remembered as well as it is today without the star power of Bogart and Bacall. After the impact they made on the moviegoing public in To Have and Have Not, Warners certainly realized the audience appeal of the pair, who by the time of the reshoots in early 1946 were fully involved in a well-publicized personal relationship.  "THEY'RE TOGETHER AGAIN! THAT MAN—BOGART! AND THAT WOMAN BACALL!" proclaimed the trailer for The Big Sleep. Over the years there have been many legendary screen teams, but Bogart and Bacall, who made only four films together, had more going for them than the onscreen chemistry that makes an enduring star team: No other legendary screen pair ever had this amount of unmistakably erotic electricity.

The Big Sleep is an example of the best thing that could happen in studio films of the Golden Age—that harmonious confluence of elements that results in a great movie: Hawks's cynicism and Chandler's. The stylized, double entendre-laced dialogue of Chandler, Faulkner et al. and Hawks's ability to wring the most from dialogue. Hawks's knack for assembling a cast that makes even the most minor character memorable. Above all, the blazing, larger-than-life charisma of Bogart and Bacall. As for the convoluted plot, it's probably best not to dwell on it. After all, not many film noirs can withstand scrutiny for loose threads in the narrative, consistency of character behavior, or believability of character motivation. Their appeal lies elsewhere—in their dark view of the world, their compellingly flawed antiheroes and femmes fatales, and their Expressionist-influenced visual style. Pauline Kael probably summed up The Big Sleep as well as anyone when she wrote that "it's the dialogue and the entertaining qualities of the individual sequences that make this movie." So sit back, forget plot logic, and savor one of the most purely enjoyable films of the 1940s.

This post is part of the Classic Movie Blog Association's Fabulous Films of the 1940s Blogathon, which runs Feb. 17-22. Click here for more information about the blogathon and a full schedule.

43 comments:

  1. Excellent post here, RDF. Bogart and Bacall did have electricity--which is on display in that phone call to the police you discussed. I'm a big stickler for plots making sense, so I don't know if I full appreciate this film as much as you, but it is still highly entertaining.

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    1. Kim, it's hard for me to say objectively how much sense the plot makes because I read the book several years before seeing the movie and so was clued in to lots of things that are either ignored or just hinted at. There's no doubt, though, that the movie has numerous balls in the air at the same time! Close examination--and I'll admit this takes quite a bit of concentration--reveals that all the killings except one are pretty much explained, although the changes the writers made to enlarge Bacall's part and avoid taboo subjects mean that certain behaviors don't always hold up to examination for motivation. As you say, though, the amount of entertainment provided puts this one over.

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  2. Great post R.D. You bring out all its unique qualities and the background of its production. I'm a big fan of the movie too, and love Raymond Chandler's books. His style of writing is still unique,though often imitated. Yes, The Big Sleep is one of the jewels of the 40s, thanks for selecting this one to contribute to the blogathon.

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    1. Christian, a friend lent me a copy of "Farewell, My Lovely" years ago, and I was hooked on Chandler and proceeded to read all his novels. Like any writer with a distinctive style, he's pretty easy to spoof, but for me he's a true original. What I find most interesting about Philip Marlowe is that even though he narrates the novels, we never learn anything much about his past, and he seems to have no life in the present aside from the case he's working on. But his voice is so distinctive that by the end of a novel we feel thoroughly familiar with his speech and thought patterns. That's actually a pretty good basis for the problematic task of turning a first-person novel into a movie.

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  3. Wow, what an excellent post on THE BIG SLEEP! I especially enjoyed your detailed comparison between the releases. It's my second favorite adaptation of a Marlowe novel (first place still goes to MURDER MY SWEET). I read all the Chandler books as a teen; the author's visual prose and his narrator's cynicism make the novels ideal film vehicles. The complex plots are sometimes an outgrowth of how Chandler weaved his earlier short stories into novels. For me, Bogart is too rough around the edges for Marlowe, but he's still good and Hawks makes THE BIG SLEEP a memorable movie experience.

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    1. Rick, "The Big Sleep" was indeed an amalgam of four stories published in pulp detective magazines. That probably explains why the various parts don't dovetail with exact accuracy. At one point near the end of the novel, Marlowe is reviewing in his mind all the people who have died during the course of his investigation, and he doesn't even mention the chauffeur whose death puzzled the screenwriters so much. Maybe Chandler had forgotten all about it by this point in the novel. My second favorite Philip Marlowe movie is easily "Murder, My Sweet." I saw it on the afternoon movie as a kid and never forgot Moose Malloy and his Velma.

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  4. So potent was the Bogart and Bacall pairing that one assumes they made many movies together, like William Powell and Myrna Loy, instead of the four big ones.

    It's never bothered me that the plot makes no sense when the film is put over with so much style. I first encountered the film many decades ago, on the afternoon 3:30 movie. That was a 90-minute time slot with commercials, so you can imagine how much was cut out. The plot made no sense, and I assumed the missing scenes that explained things were cut to fit the film in time slot. But I didn't care, because I was so entertained.

    Later on, when I saw the film uncut, it still didn't make sense and I still didn't care. It's a wonderful film. The later Michael Winner remake, set in contemporary London and starring Robert Mitchum, is a bit more faithful to the book, if memory serves, and it's a mess. It explains the plot more, but I'll take the mood and atmosphere, and the superb playing of Bogart and Bacall, and the Warner Bros. stock company, over a linear plot any time.

    A great post on a great movie.

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    1. Kevin, the plot makes more sense than some think, but you really have to apply yourself to follow it, and I'm not sure it's worth all the effort with so many other, more accessible pleasures to be found in the movie. The Mitchum remake WAS a mess. He fared better, I thought, in his version of "Farewell, My Lovely." But there's something so thoroughly 1940s about the Marlowe stories that I don't think any later movie versions captured that sensibility as well as those from the 40s.

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  5. Well done! You perfectly capture the allure of this film and the great chemistry between Bogart & Bacall. And, well, who cares that it is a little fanciful? Just watching that magic makes you believe that it is all perfectly logical!

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    1. FlickChick, you picked a great word to describe movies like this one--fanciful. I approach film noir with a GREAT BIG willing suspension of disbelief. Like most classic movie fans I love film noir. But let's face it, it is a very stylized genre, and those who demand absolute realism are bound to be disappointed. With its high quotient of cynicism and brutality, the genre would be hard for me to take except as an exaggeration of reality. That's why I feel uncomfortable with the overly realistic treatment of these things in most modern movies.

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  6. "...and there's no doubt that the necessary coyness about these subjects compromises the plot's coherence." You think?! And it doesn't matter at all because of the leads' chemistry and the sure hand of Mr. Hawks. You, and "The Big Sleep" nailed the 40s.

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    1. Caftan Woman, one of the reasons it took the book seven years to reach the screen was that everybody but Hawks was too daunted by the prospect of getting a screenplay that would pass the Code censors. In a way, the loose plotting of what they did come up with seems to anticipate the kind of loose plotting that has become fashionable in the last few decades. It was probably due to the influence of European movies of the 60s, which are often rather free-form in their plotting (or at least have the appearance of being so). So in a way what might be considered a flaw has kept the film from dating as much as the overly plotted jigsaws a lot of American films of the 40s tried to be after "Citizen Kane."

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  7. Uh, oh, dare I admit that this is one of my "really don't like it" films? It's my least favorite of the Bogey/Bacall pairings, and I don't like "To Have and Have Not" much more. (I know, I know, y'all will throw me out of the CMBA for admitting that; however, Ivan admitted that he can't stand "Gone with the Wind," so I guess all of us veer off the well-traveled road at one point or another. I just tend to do it more than other people do.)

    Probably the main reason I don't care for this is that I found it highly confusing. Anything that confuses me will not sit well. Despite not liking the film, though, there were several snatches of dialogue which really stuck with me. Especially funny (to me) was when Bogey's character was asked "Is he as cute as you?" His response, "Nobody is." For some reason, that tickled me.

    Then at one point he says, "He said that. That's what the man said. He said that." His redundancy cemented that movie line into my brain for keeps.

    And my son often jokes about wanting to go into a bookstore and request a 1st edition Ben-Hur.

    Anyhow, great review of a highly-regarded movie...and my dad's favorite Bogey/Bacall flick.

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    1. Patti, thanks for taking the time to read the post and leave a comment even though it's not a film you much like. It's funny how a stray bit of dialogue will stick in your mind, isn't it? My favorite line in "The Big Sleep" is when Bogart sarcastically asks the assistant in the phony book store if they sell books and she points to some books on a table and says, "What do those look like--grapefruit?" Don't know why, but it always cracks me up.

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  8. Bogart and Bacall are both just fabulous here. It's a perfect cinematic match. The story is convuluted, even Chandler was not sure about who murdered whom, but it does not really matter. What matters is the star power, the unforgettable scenes and Hawk's masterful direction his...

    " prowess at telling a story visually without becoming intrusive. Hawks was a master of narrative momentum, and everything he does in The Big Sleep—staging, framing, camera placement and movement, editing, the image that moves the story forward, the conversation that defines character and relationship—is calculated to sustain that momentum."

    You said it so good!

    Out of curiosity, have you seen the Robert Mitchum version? It's nowhere near as good but it's worth seeing for Mitchum's portrayal of Marlowe.

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    1. John, thanks! I have seen the Mitchum version and like you didn't think much of it apart from Mitchum. I've also seen his version of "Farewell, My Lovely" and thought he fared better there. He was a bit too old for Marlowe but otherwise seemed so right that you have to wonder why nobody ever thought of him as Philip Marlowe before.

      You might say that Hawks's version is more than the sum of its parts. Some movies have all the right ingredients yet feel flat and uninvolving. But a movie like "The Big Sleep" has the right ingredients plus some other indefinable quality that makes everything come together and ignite.

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    2. I agree FAREWELL, MY LOVELY is a much better film overall than Michael Winner's '78 version of THE BIG SLEEP and Mitchum does well. It's a tough film to find these days unfortunately. Would really like to see it again.

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  9. R.D., somehow I feel as if I should really love this film more than I do - as a fan of Hawks, Bogart and Bacall I should find it irresistible, but every time I watch it I find I get lost in the convolutions of the plot, however much I promise myself that this time I won't worry about it! After reading your excellent review I'm thinking that I should really go back to the Chandler story, which I read many years ago, before trying the film again in future. Anyway, I must agree that Bogart is the perfect Marlowe and the ideal private eye altogether - as you say, Mitchum was really too old for the part when he came to it, but also seems ideal.

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    1. Judy, reading the book definitely helps certain things make more sense, like the nature of the "racket" the blackmailer runs and what the hold is he has over the younger Sternwood daughter, but I'm not sure how much it would add to an understanding of who killed whom and why. I know what you mean about the frustration of feeling disoriented about why things are happening in a film, but with this one I don't think it hurts to wait for that until a repeat viewing. That is, of course, if the film clicks with you enough the first time around to make you want to watch it again.

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  10. R.D.,
    I'm so glad we're getting a lot of Bogie during this Blogathon. Always a good thing! Bogie with Bacall with Hawks at the helm is an even better thing.

    Before I forget. Thanks for the bit of trivia Love reading that TBS was shown to our troops first.

    As for the character, Philip Marlowe, which has been played by so many actors as you mention here. Bogart, the original is the performance that all others strived to fill and my favorite. I finally saw the Dick Powell films as the character a couple of years ago and I was underwhelmed. I did like Robert Montgomery in Lady in the Lake then Powers Boothe years later in the TV version.

    As you mention above, I agree that Mitchum was just too old to play the character. Perhaps if he had done a remake in the 50s or even the 60s.

    Another great read and a stellar submission to the Blogathon.

    See ya soon!
    Page

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    1. Page, thank you! One reason I like Bogart as Philip Marlowe so much is that it allows him to show a flip, humorous side to his personality (even though a lot of that is gallows humor), whereas in other films he tends to seem so serious. That's a hard quality to project in the context of a film noir murder mystery that doesn't go all the way to black comedy. Of the other actors who played Marlowe, for me Dick Powell came closest to capturing this darkly humorous side of the character.

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  11. I'm another one who doesn't really like this movie, although I really want to like it. I love Bogie and Bacall here, along with the rest of the terrific cast. But every time I see it I scratch my head and say, "What just happened?" I don't think a person should have to read the book to have the movie make sense - the movie should stand on its own. However, there are things to enjoy...even for a curmudgeon like me.

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    1. Silverscreenings, Bogart and Bacall are amazing here, and if you respond to them as a team, they're reason enough to take a look at "The Big Sleep."

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  12. Great film, great analysis. I have nothing to add because you've said it all so well :)

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    1. Filmboy, thank you. Glad to hear you like the movie, which to judge from the comments people seem either to respond to or not, with not a lot of middle ground. Everyone seems to like Bogart and Bacall, though!

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  13. Great analysis and background of the filming of the two versions. I can also forgive the plot holes for the style, but its fun to learn the mechanics behind the script and what ended up on screen. Thanks.

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    1. Jacqueline, I enjoyed re-reading the book for comparison and taking a look at both versions, but I concentrated on thinking about the release version, which I believe stands on its own merits. There was a practical reason for this approach too--it's a film that most classic movie fans have seen and formed their own opinion about, so rehashing things that are already familiar didn't seem the way to go.

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  14. Beautiful tribute to the film, R.D. I was especially fascinated by your contrast of the two versions. Someone told me that if you watch the original the whole plot makes sense, but by your account, maybe not. I really like the comparison between the two office scenes and I agree, who wouldn't want to see Bacall in that beret, flirting with Bogart over the phone? While the Philip Marlowe I picture from the novels doesn't look or sound like Bogart, it still doesn't matter to me because Bogart has such a way with the dialogue and tone. There's little to say here because you cover it all so well.

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    1. Aubyn, thank you. As I wrote in another reply, I read the book years before watching the movie properly, so it's hard for me say how clear the plot would be for someone without this advantage. Howard Hawks's biographer Todd McCarthy thought there was a significant difference between the two versions. He called the pre-release version "more linear." I just didn't see this. If he was referring to linear in time, both versions are chronological. If he was talking about linear in the sense of following one plot instead of several simultaneously, I didn't find this either. The screenplay was adapted from a novel narrated by Marlowe, and he is in every scene in the film, as he is in the book. So it's impossible to introduce subplots or counterplots without violating this point of view, and Faulkner and the other writers knew this and observed it. The biogrqapher quoted dialogue in the scene at the D.A.'s office that he claimed clarified confusing points. I didn't find the dialogue he quoted in the scene at all. I don't know where he got it, possibly from a draft of the screenplay.

      It's interesting that every actor who played Marlowe put his own stamp on the role. But Bogart had such a strong screen presence that, as you say, he sort of made Marlowe another in the Humphrey Bogart gallery of characters.

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  15. R.D. What an engrossing look at "The Big Sleep." I've always enjoyed the beginning of the film (the scene in the sweltering greenhouse is especially memorable) but become lost as the plot progresses. It's one of those films I watch just for the visuals and the dialogue. I never tire of Bogart, but early Bacall now strikes me more as a series of poses and sidelong glances + smoky voice than a performance. Their chemistry is undeniable, though.

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    1. Eve, thanks. That opening is a real hook, isn't it, one of the most atmospheric scenes in a movie that's largely atmosphere. Some interesting comments you made about Bacall's acting being more attitude than performance. Bogart definitely brought out the best in her, and other than the films she made with him, I don't find her a terribly interesting actress either. She never struck me as suggesting much vulnerability, yet her later roles often called for just this quality (I'm thinking of the better ones, like "The Cobweb" and "Written on the Wind.")

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  16. R.D., you've paid a lovely tribute to one of the silver screen's truly most compelling pairings. My favorite Marlowe film has always been "Murder My Sweet." Like you, I have had fun reading Raymond Chandler's books and so I especially enjoyed your comments comparing the source work with the film. Well done!

    My father-in-law had a wonderful library filled with Chandler and "The Shadow" books. Two more wonderful reasons to have loved him so. Thank you for the wonderful memories!

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    1. Toto, thanks so much for leaving a comment. As I told Rick, "Murder, My Sweet" is my next favorite Philip Marlowe movie and Dick Powell my next favorite Philip Marlowe. In comparison with "The Big Sleep" it seems a more faithful version of the novel, whereas "Sleep" seems more a Howard Hawks version of a Raymond Chandler novel. I especially like Claire Trevor as Velma. Have you ever seen the Saint version? I finally saw it on TCM awhile back. While not really faithful in any way to the novel aside from the basic plot, it does have the interesting casting of Ward Bond as Moose Malloy.

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    2. What a wonderful write up on one of my favorite films film. I think it shows what a wonderful actor Bogart truly was.

      I loved the bookstore scene in which Bogey dresses up as a nerdy customer looking for a rare book. I almost did not recognize him.


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    3. Dawn, that scene in the bookstore is a hoot, isn't it? The way he does that routine to distract the clerk from the fact that he's fishing for information is not only clever but very funny as well--just a minor adjustment to his appearance but a big transformation in personality.

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    4. R.D., if you are referring to "The Falcon Takes Over." then I did see it quite some time ago. I always have rather enjoyed George Sanders.

      toto

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    5. Yes, I did mean "The Falcon Takes Over." George Sanders also played the Saint, and one of the episodes was called "The Saint Takes Over." Crossed wires in my mind, I suppose!

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  17. Your article really does make one consider if "The Big Sleep" could have worked without Bogart, Bacall, and Hawks. I saw it on the big screen a few years ago and without a doubt the Bogie/Bacall magic made it mesmerizing. "Murder My Sweet" had a better plot so I have always found it a more satisfying film. However, I think Bogie and Hawks deserve credit for making the best version of "The Big Sleep" that was possible.

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    1. Gilby, you put it very succinctly. I agree that it's unlikely any other combination of director and stars could have put this one over with such memorable results. As I said elsewhere, it's one of those movies that for me are more than the sum of their parts. The whole might not quite add up, but when the parts are this good, I can't complain.

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  18. Good post! It's been a while since I've seen this one, the one thing I can remember is the chemistry between Bogie & Bacall! And I do remember having a hard time keeping up with the plot :), it reminded me a lot of another Bogie good one, "The Maltese Falcon." But well worth the watch if just to see the fireworks between Bogie & Bacall. :D

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    1. Bacall, thanks. Yes, this and "The Maltese Falcon" are Bogart's two great excursions into the detective/film noir genre. I like "Falcon" even more than "The Big Sleep." It has one of the greatest ensemble performances by the entire cast of any film.

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  19. Excellent post, R.D.! I really appreciated your detailed analysis of what director Hawks brought to the film. Hawks' fluid, unfussy style doesn't call attention to itself, which is perhaps why some critics failed to realize just how special he was, instead labeling him merely a commercially successful director rather than a true artist. I think you pinpointed many reasons why Hawks' films seem so fresh to this day. And of course, Bogart and Bacall are priceless together. Bogart also gets a chance to shine with several other beautiful ladies in THE BIG SLEEP. I especially like his scene in the bookstore with an oh-so-sexy Dorothy Malone. Some of the innuendo-laden dialogue is pretty outrageous, and it always surprises me how much the screenwriters snuck past the censors.

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    1. Jeff, thanks for your insightful comments. Hawks left his mark on his films less with technical embellishment than with his attitude and his sense of how to tell a story in a visually dramatic way. One of the running jokes in "The Big Sleep" is how just about every young and available female in the picture throws herself at Bogart--not just Carmen, but the bookstore clerk you mentioned, the female cab driver, the cigarette girls at the gambling club.

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