The Big Sleep (1946)

August 23, 1946, release date

Directed by Howard Hawks

Screenplay by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman

Based on the novel The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Music by Max Steiner

Edited by Christian Nyby

Cinematography by Sidney Hickox

Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe

Lauren Bacall as Vivian Sternwood Rutledge

Martha Vickers as Carmen Sternwood

John Ridgely as Eddie Mars

Pat Clark as Mona Mars [1945 version only]

Peggy Knudsen as Mona Mars [1946 version only]

Regis Toomey as Chief Inspector Bernie Ohls

Charles Waldron as General Sternwood

Charles D. Brown as Norris

Bob Steele as Lash Canino

Elisha Cook, Jr. as Harry Jones, the man tailing Philip Marlowe

Louis Jean Heydt as Joe Brody

Dorothy Malone as Acme Bookstore proprietor

Sonia Darrin as Agnes Lowzier, the salesgirl at A.J. Geiger bookstore

Ben Welden as Pete, Mars’s flunky

Tom Fadden as Sidney, Mars’s flunky

Trevor Bardette as Art Huck

Theordore Eltz as Arthur Gwynn Geiger

James Flavin as Captain Cronjager [1945 version only]

Thomas E. Jackson as District Attorney Wilde [1945 version only]

Dan Wallace as Carol Lundgren

Joseph Crehan as the medical examiner

Joy Barlowe as the cab driver

Distributed by Warner Bros.

Produced by Warner Bros.

The Big Sleep has it all when it comes to film noir: Humphrey Bogart in the lead playing a detective, sometimes wearing his rumpled trench coat; murder; blackmail; dark and gloomy nights, which makes for perfect noir production and lighting values; drug addiction; and pornography, which is mostly implied in the era of Hollywood’s production code. And then there is the romance between Phil Marlowe (Bogart) and Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall), which also makes it a Bogie and Bacall film, of course. There’s no doubt Bogart and Bacall have a commanding screen presence, although I thought this was more evident in their first film, To Have and Have Not.

Bogart and Bacall appeared in four films together, and The Big Sleep was their second:

◊ To Have and Have Not (1944), loosely based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway (Click here for my post about the film.)

◊ The Big Sleep (1946), based on the novel by Raymond Chandler

◊ Dark Passage (1947), based on the novel by David Goodis

◊ Key Largo (1948), based on the play by Maxwell Anderson

All four films are considered noir, and the second and third are written by authors who wrote many crime and detective novels.

The Big Sleep starts with Philip Marlowe arriving at the Sternwood residence at the request of General Sternwood, who is being blackmailed a second time. Both instances of blackmail are the result of questionable activities by the second of his two daughters, Carmen. She is the one who has the drug problem and is willing to pose for compromising pictures. Shawn Regan, who used to work for General Sternwood and followed up on the first instance of blackmail, is rumored to have run off with Eddie Mars’s wife and is now unavailable to help General Sternwood resolve Carmen’s troubles. Eddie Mars is the owner of a local casino, where Vivian Sternwood, the older of the two Sternwood daughters, has lost and won large sums of money. (Both daughters have trouble staying out of trouble!) Marlowe starts his investigation with Arthur Gwynne Geiger, the person sending the requests for money to General Sternwood, which turn out to be promissory notes signed by his daughter Carmen.

What follows is a complicated plot that parallels Marlowe’s investigation. I’ve seen the film, both versions (more about this below), several times, and I have read Raymond Chandler’s novel. There is some lore about the plot being so complicated that even the screenwriters didn’t know who killed which character. Wikipedia states:

The Big Sleep is known for its convoluted plot. During filming, neither the director nor the cast knew whether the chauffeur Owen Taylor had killed himself or was murdered. A cable was sent to Chandler, who told his friend Jamie Hamilton in a March 21, 1949. letter: “They sent me a wire . . . asking me, and dammit I didn't know either.”

(Click here for more at Wikipedia about the film.) This type of story adds to the mystique and allure of the film—and quite successfully, too.

(This blog post about The Big Sleep contains all the spoilers. I mean it!)

The plot of the film is indeed quite complicated, but it’s not indecipherable—especially if you are willing to see it more than once. I have to admit that seeing it several times helped me quite a bit. I took the following notes after seeing the film several years ago, which now keeps the plot from getting too tangled for me:

Dead:

◊ Shawn Regan: killed by Carmen Sternwood in the book, by Eddie Mars and perhaps with help from Carmen Sternwood in the film

◊ Arthur Gwynn Geiger: killed by Owen Taylor

◊ Owen Taylor, the Sternwoods’ chauffeur: killed by Joe Brody

◊ Joe Brody, killed by Carol Lundgren, Geiger’s chauffeur

◊ Harry Jones, now with Agnes Lowzier after Brody’s murder, killed by Lash Canino

◊ Lash Canino, killed by Philip Marlowe

◊ Eddie Mars, gunned down by his own henchmen

◊ Book explains the title (the big sleep = death), but I don’t think the film ever does.

I suspect that many viewers in 1946 were more interested in seeing Bogart and Bacall on the big screen. In fact, one of the reasons that the original version of The Big Sleep was reshot was to take advantage of the on-screen chemistry between Bogart and Bacall and to satisfy fans who wanted to see more of them. The cover of the DVD that I watched shows the theatrical release poster, which proclaims, “The picture they were born for!”

The DVD comes with a short documentary to explain many of the changes and the reasons for them: The Big Sleep Comparisons 1945/1946. UCLA archivist Robert Gitt analyzes the differences between the 1945 and 1946 versions. Here are some of the points that Gitt makes in the DVD documentary:

◊ Filming started on October 10, 1944, and ended on January 12, 1945. The film was ready for release to the public in March 1945. However, World War II ended in 1945. The Big Sleep was shelved for a year and a half so Warner Brothers could release all its war-themed films that it had in the pipeline and avoid having them become dated.

◊ Howard Hawkes, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and others reshot scenes to capitalize on the chemistry between Bacall and Bogart. The producers wanted her to act more like her character, Marie “Slim” Browning, in To Have and Have Not (1944), which was an immensely popular film. Her performance in her second film, Confidential Agent, was panned by critics, so much so that many questioned her ability to act at all.

◊ A letter dated November 16, 1945, from Charles K. Feldman, a talented Hollywood agent representing many in the film industry, including Lauren Bacall, to Jack L. Warner requested retakes with Lauren Bacall. He was trying to salvage his client’s, Lauren Bacall’s, career. He thought Bacall’s insolence in To Have and Have Not was a hit with audiences because she was more insolent than Bogart, and this was new and refreshing.

◊ Warner agreed, and the reshot version was released to the public on August 23, 1946.

I noticed that Philip Marlowe doesn’t treat women particularly well in The Big Sleep. He is quick with the clever but rude comeback, although this doesn’t seem to hurt his chances with women, of course. Marlowe/Bogart is the leading man, and this is 1946. It certainly didn’t stop me from rooting for him and Vivian. Maybe they deserve one another? Anyway, here are a couple of examples:

◊ After Marlowe does some research in the library, one of the librarians tells him, “You know, you don’t look like a man who’d be interested in first editions.” His quick comeback: “I collect blondes in bottles, too.”

◊ When Marlowe continues his investigation at the Acme Bookstore, which is across the street from Geiger’s bookshop, he and the proprietor of the Acme Bookstore decide to share a drink. She doesn’t even get a name, although Marlowe has a rather long and romantically entangled stakeout in her store. He is willing to get to know her better, shall we say, while on the job, but she has to take off her glasses and change her appearance to suit him.

Almost seventy-four years after the film’s initial release, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall can still command the screen and hold the attention of film viewers. In spite of a plot that was reworked enough to make it difficult to follow and a starring detective who is rough around the edges in many ways, The Big Sleep is a still lot of fun. And I enjoyed figuring out all the intricacies of the plot.