The Big Sleep (1946 film)
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The Big Sleep (1946) is the first film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart as the hard-boiled private-eye Philip Marlowe and his real-life wife Lauren Bacall as the femme fatale. The film was directed by Howard Hawks and is an example of the film noir genre. William Faulkner cowrote the screenplay with Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman.
Plot
The Big Sleep features one of the most convoluted plots in cinema history. The narrative is even harder to follow given that the film leaves several elements of the story undeveloped. The various plot strands are rather precariously held together within the film’s gossamer structure.The story begins when Philip Marlowe visits his new client, General Sternwood, presumably to take care of some gambling debts left by his youngest daughter Carmen to a bookseller named Geiger. The oldest daughter, Vivian, suspects that her father is more concerned with finding out what happened to his employee Sean Regan, who had mysteriously disappeared about a month prior.
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In a later scene, we find out that it was not Brody, but General Sternwood’s chauffeur, Owen Taylor, who shot Geiger. Brody merely found Taylor, clubbed him, and took the film. Brody left Taylor unconscious in the car, which was later mysteriously driven off the pier, leading to Taylor's watery death. Incidentally, this is the plot point that left the director, the screenwriters, and even Raymond Chandler himself baffled. None of them could figure out who killed Taylor. The film likewise does not develop the details surrounding Geiger’s murder, nor the later murder of Joe Brody by Geiger’s shadow, Carol Lundgren (presumably, among other reasons, because Carol Lundgren is a man and he was Geiger's homosexual partner - not something the Hollywood censors would have permitted in 1946). The story soon shifts to focus on the mystery at the heart of the film: the whereabouts of Sean Regan.
Eddie Mars owns the house that Geiger lived in, and also owns a gambling establishment frequented by Vivian. Marlowe first met Mars while he was investigating the Geiger murder, which had also taken Mars by surprise. The two offered each other their help if needed. However, Mars becomes decidedly less friendly when Marlowe asks about Sean Regan, who had presumably run off with Mars’ wife. Vivian too is anxious for Marlowe to close the case after the resolution of the Geiger matter, and to stop him from inquiring about Sean Regan. Marlowe is curious why Mars isn’t more worried about finding his wife, and why so many people are determined to stop him from finding Sean Regan.
It is later revealed, at least implicitly, that Eddie Mars convinced Vivian that he has proof that Carmen had murdered Regan, and had been using this to compel Vivian’s cooperation. Meanwhile, Mars’ wife in fact did not run off with Regan at all, but was merely hiding out to make it look like she ran off with him. Mars presumes that this will keep the cops from becoming suspicious that he himself killed Regan. Marlowe eventually convinces Vivian to help him instead of Mars, and the two of them figure out that it was Mars who killed Sean Regan after all. Mars is then mistakenly shot by his own men after an apparent shootout at the Geiger house.
Background
The film is fondly remembered for its extremely convoluted plot. A famous story tells that, during filming, the director and screenwriters could not figure out who had killed the character of chauffeur Owen Taylor. They sent a cable to the author, who replied saying "I'm damned if I know!"After the film was completed, it was shelved while Warner Bros. worked to release a backlog of war-related films. It was decided that since the war was drawing to a close, public interest in these films would be substantially lessened after its conclusion, whereas The Big Sleep had no such obvious issues of time sensitivity which would require a more immediate release. (A careful eye will spot many indications of The Big Sleep being shot during the war, such as ration stamps and dialogue, and pictures of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.)
Once the war ended, and Warner Bros. planned to release The Big Sleep, the "Bogie & Bacall" phenomenon caused by their electric appearance in To Have and Have Not as well as their subsequent marriage, was in full swing. Bacall's agent requested that portions of the film be reshot to capitalize on her newly attained celebrity. Studio head Jack Warner agreed, and new material, such as the suggestive "horse racing" scene was added (even though, contextually, it makes no sense whatsoever). Parts of the ending were also reshot, with Peggy Knudsen now in the part of Mona Mars, owing to the original actress, Pat Clark, being unavailable. While there is only a difference of two minutes in the run time of both versions, there is over twenty minutes of different footage between them. In its revised form, The Big Sleep made its theatrical debut on 23 August 1946.
The theatrical release of the film is generally regarded as better. Although some regard this release as more confusing and more difficult to follow (it lacks, for example, a long and stilted conversation between Marlowe and the Los Angeles District Attorney during which the facts of the case thus far are discussed), most argue that the delight of seeing Bogart's Marlowe and Bacall's Vivian Sternwood spar verbally, flirt, and fall in love more than makes up for it.
For an example of this view, see Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" essay on the film, located here:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19970622/REVIEWS08/401010360/1023
Not to mention that the plot's confusing nature is overstated. Repeated viewings, more than warranted by the quality of the film, make the plot clearer.
Critical reaction
Film critic Roger Ebert, who entered the film in his list of [100 Great Movies], praises the film's writing:
- "Working from Chandler's original words and adding spins of their own, the writers (William Faulkner, Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett) wrote one of the most quotable of screenplays: It's unusual to find yourself laughing in a movie not because something is funny but because it's so wickedly clever."
Re-release
In the late 1990's, a prerelease print -- Hawks' original cut -- was discovered in the UCLA Film and Television Archives. Apparently, this version had been released to the military to play for troops stationed in the south Pacific. A consortium of benefactors led by Hugh Hefner raised the necessary funds to restore the print, and it was released to specialty houses for a short theatrical run, along with a documentary comparing the differences between it and the studio release version. A DVD containing both versions of the film was released in 2000, along with an edited down version of the comparison documentary.Awards
- Library of Congress (1997) U.S. National Film Registry.
Quotes
- Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you? Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
- Vivian: So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust. Marlowe: Who's he? Vivian: You wouldn't know him, a French writer. Marlowe: Come into my boudoir.
- Vivian: You go too far, Marlowe. Marlowe: Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom
- Vivian: You've forgotten one thing - me. Marlowe: What's wrong with you? Vivian: Nothing you can't fix.
- Marlowe: How did you happen to pick out this place? Vivian: Maybe I wanted to hold your hand. Marlowe: Oh, that can be arranged.
- Vivian: Tell me: What do you usually do when you're not working? Marlowe: Oh, play the horses, fool around. Vivian: No women? Marlowe: I'm generally working on something most of the time. Vivian: Could that be stretched to include me? Marlowe: Well I like you. I've told you that before. Vivian: I like hearing you say it. But you didn't do much about it. Marlowe: Well, neither did you. Vivian: Well, speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them work out a little first, see if they're front-runners or come from behind, find out what their hole-card is. What makes them run. Marlowe: Find out mine? Vivian: I think so.
Trivia
- The author of the novel, Raymond Chandler, claimed that Martha Vickers gave an incredible performance as Carmen Sternwood. So much so that she completely overshadowed Lauren Bacall in her scenes. Unfortunately, this led the powers that be to edit the film in such a way that much of Vickers' performance ended up on the cutting room floor.
- The storyline of this film is so complicated and convoluted that even screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman were forced to consult Raymond Chandler for advice. Unfortunately, according to legend, Chandler was as confused by the plot as the screenwriters.
- The henchman Sidney and Pete are named as a tribute to Bogie's frequent costars Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
- The film was made during the age of censorship, wherein certain points were expected to be able to be picked up by the adult audience but missed by children. The sort of books that Geiger rents quite profitably are mentioned in the book as pornography, which at the time was illegal and associated with organized crime. The photograph of Carmen wearing a "Chinese dress" and sitting in a "Chinese chair" is also supposed to allude to this. Today's audiences might not realize this.
External links
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