View Full Version : Movie Review: The Big Sleep
I own this movie, and for some reason I've never been able to get through it. I always fall asleep less than halfway through. I tried it for maybe the 6th or 7th time today, and loved it.
Humphrey Bogart is the man in this movie. He's his usual "You're-a-hot-chick-but-I-don't-give-a-[censored]" self. Every single woman in this movie is hot: including librarians, cab drivers, book store girls, etc--and every one wants Bogart's nuts, it's fantastic. Hell, I'm not sure I didn't want Bogart's nuts after this movie.
I didn't follow the story the first half dozen times either because I'm stupid or it's hard to follow--I don't know which. I kinda got it this time. It's a film noir detective story that's so quintessential of the genre that it's hilarious. It's full of great lines, it's got humor, drama, romance, and hot chicks (including Lauren Bacall--God damn, I love Lauren Bacall). Watch it if you get a chance.
imported_The Vibesman
09-20-2005, 01:14 PM
This might come as a shock; but I've seen this movie.
It's a fantastic movie, a fine adaptation of Raymond Chandler's excellent novel. Anyone who enjoys noir should read the works of Chandler, following his private detective Philip Marlowe. It so happens that The Big Sleep is the first of those novels.
My only problem with the picture is actually the bit where Lauren Bacall sings in the club. It's out of character, I thought, and probably went in at the studio's insistence.
The plotline isn't the easiest to follow; it's pretty convoluted, actually. This was Chandler's first novel, and he fell prey to the trappings of the genre pretty easily (if you're unsure what to do, have someone come through the door with a gun, or have your hero discover a corpse.) Here's a fun exercise, try and figure out who killed chauffer Owen Taylor.
The version I have on DVD actually has two versions, the director's original cut, and the version that was released, with some extra scenes added to beef up the romance between Bogart and Bacall.
I actually liked Bacall's singing, but for an unrelated reason. She sang in To Have and Have Not (which is one of my favorite two movies) and I was wondering if that was her own voice. This movie confirmed that it was.
There were a lot of guns and corpses, but it was nice how Bogart kept joking about it. That was one of the elements that showed that the movie wasn't taking itself too seriously.
I'm not sure which version I saw (it was side A on the DVD). I'll watch the other next time.
Dominic
09-20-2005, 01:39 PM
"The Big Sleep" is awesome. One of the all-time greats.
The plot is also almost completely incomprehensible. It's famous for being so. The plot machinations are so complicated, Howard Hawks actually hadto call Raymond Chandler to as him who killed the driver - Chandler didn't know!
What makes it great is Bogart, Bacall, Dorothy Malone, Martha Vickers and all the wonderful back-and-forth dialogue by Chandler and William Faulkner. It's the most quoatable movie this side of "Casablanca:"
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.
MARLOWE: Go ahead.
VIVIAN: I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a lead, take a little breather in the back stretch, and then come home free.
MARLOWE: You don't like to be rated yourself.
VIVIAN: I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
MARLOWE: Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but, uh...I don't know how-how far you can go.
VIVIAN: A lot depends on who's in the saddle. Go ahead Marlowe, I like the way you work. In case you don't know it, you're doing all right.
MARLOWE: There's one thing I can't figure out.
VIVIAN: What makes me run?
MARLOWE: Uh huh.
VIVIAN: I'll give you a little hint. Sugar won't work. It's been tried.
I'm sorry, but that HAS to be the sexiest bit of dialogue in any movie.
benfranklin
09-20-2005, 01:46 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry, but that HAS to be the sexiest bit of dialogue in any movie.
[/ QUOTE ]
Close, but not the winner. Lauren Bacall in "To Have and Have Not":
"You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow."
A recut version made it through the theaters a couple of years ago. The script was written by William Faulkner adapting a novel by Raymond Chandler. And, for enthusiasts of The Dude, a good amount of The Big Lebowski was lifted from The Big Sleep.
imported_The Vibesman
09-20-2005, 01:53 PM
This is a great bit, and actually wasn't in Hawks' original version of the movie. It's one of the scenes added at the studio's behest to add heat to the Bogart-Bacall pairing. And add heat it does.
Other than that bit, a good amount of the dialogue is directly from Chandler's novel, with a few subtle changes every once in a while. One of my favorites is in the beginning, when Carmen first meets Marlowe at the mansion. In the book she comments on how tall he is, but Bogart isn't tall, so in the movie it goes like this:
Carmen: "You're not very tall, are you?"
Philip: "Well, I try to be."
One of my favorite bits that is in the book, Marlowe to Vivian:
Vivian: "..and I don't like your manners!"
Marlowe: "I'm not wild about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind you not liking my manners, they're pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings. I don't mind you showing me your legs. They're swell legs, and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind you ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a Scotch bottle. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me."
Well, the line about the legs isn't actually in the movie but the rest is. In the movie she's wearing pants, not a dressing gown.
imported_The Vibesman
09-20-2005, 02:02 PM
[ QUOTE ]
And, for enthusiasts of The Dude, a good amount of The Big Lebowski was lifted from The Big Sleep.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's funny, the first time I saw Lebowski, I told the Vibesgirl, "This is basically a Chandler novel, but instead of Marlowe as the main character, it's an aging hippie stoner." The weird dreams, getting drugged and left on the side of the road, the crooked cops in Malibu (in Chandler's novels it's Bay City), the rich guy with the wild pad out in the middle of nowhere, all Marlowe stuff. Later, I read an interview with the Coens where they talked about all the ways they tied Lebowski to Marlowe, but I already knew.
It was actually the dreams that really clued me in; Marlowe always had these strange dreams in the novels. In The Big Sleep, when he finds Carmen drugged/drunk in Geiger's house after a photography session and takes her home, she is naked except for a pair of jade earrings (naturally - and unfortunately - she is not naked in the movie.) There's a camera set up with no film in it. He takes her back to her place and when he gets home and falls asleep he has a dream about chasing a naked woman wearing jade earrings around while someone tries to take a picture of it with a camera with no film in it.
That was a fantastic scene. I remember gaping and thinking to myself, "Did she just SAY that?" I don't think I've ever seen so much sexual tension between two actors than was in that scene.
I love old movies like this, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, Notorious, etc. It sounds like you guys know your stuff--could you recommend some more to me?
imported_The Vibesman
09-20-2005, 02:19 PM
Off the top of my head, if you like Bogart, get The Desperate Hours. Plays a bad guy, which is fun. Movie was remade w/ Mickey Rourke, I like Mickey but that's one to avoid. Obviously if you've never seen The Maltese Falcon, that's one to check out.
I'm also a big fan of The Thin Man movies - a series of 6 films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. The first is based on the novel The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett (who also wrote the novel The Maltese Falcon.) They're all entertaining, but the early few are the best. My favorite is the second, After The Thin Man, which co-stars a young James Stewart.
Dominic
09-20-2005, 02:30 PM
can't go wrong with anything Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder....check out Trouble in Paradise and Double Indemnity.
12ozLongneck
09-20-2005, 02:35 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I love old movies like this, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, Notorious, etc. It sounds like you guys know your stuff--could you recommend some more to me?
[/ QUOTE ]
Off the top of my head:
The Third Man
Killer Bait (also known as Too Late For Tears)
The Roaring Twenties
The Killing
The Lady From Shanghi
Pickup On South Street
Ministry of Fear
The Big Knife
12ozLongneck
09-20-2005, 02:38 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Here's a fun exercise, try and figure out who killed chauffer Owen Taylor.
[/ QUOTE ]
Didn't Chandler say that he didn't know who killed him?
imported_The Vibesman
09-20-2005, 02:48 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Here's a fun exercise, try and figure out who killed chauffer Owen Taylor.
[/ QUOTE ]
Didn't Chandler say that he didn't know who killed him?
[/ QUOTE ]
Hawks said he called Chandler late at night and asked him who it was, and Chandler paused for a long time, finally said, "Damned if I know," and hung up. The book doesn't even make it clear that it was definitely murder, although the cops think it might have been. I used to think it was Joe Brody, but now I'm not sure.
That's a great list you've got up there. And Dominic brought up Double Indemnity, the screenplay for that was co-written by Chandler, it's another fantastic movie.
Los Feliz Slim
09-20-2005, 04:25 PM
Fantastic recommendation. It's been raining and dark in LA today, which always makes me think of this movie.
Blarg
09-20-2005, 04:32 PM
[ QUOTE ]
This is a great bit, and actually wasn't in Hawks' original version of the movie. It's one of the scenes added at the studio's behest to add heat to the Bogart-Bacall pairing. And add heat it does.
Other than that bit, a good amount of the dialogue is directly from Chandler's novel, with a few subtle changes every once in a while. One of my favorites is in the beginning, when Carmen first meets Marlowe at the mansion. In the book she comments on how tall he is, but Bogart isn't tall, so in the movie it goes like this:
Carmen: "You're not very tall, are you?"
Philip: "Well, I try to be."
One of my favorite bits that is in the book, Marlowe to Vivian:
Vivian: "..and I don't like your manners!"
Marlowe: "I'm not wild about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind you not liking my manners, they're pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings. I don't mind you showing me your legs. They're swell legs, and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind you ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a Scotch bottle. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me."
Well, the line about the legs isn't actually in the movie but the rest is. In the movie she's wearing pants, not a dressing gown.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ah, that business about the legs is a great one and adds a lot. Too bad that was dropped.
Blarg
09-20-2005, 04:59 PM
Great thread. Nice to see folks with an appreciation for stuff that isn't just what came out in the last 10 minutes.
I'll chime in with three more obscure ones since lots of the more well known ones have been taken.
"Ossessione" is the first film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, and is a nicely amoral rendering, much more vicious and sexual than you'd see in an American film of the time. It's a black and white Italian film classic and really knocked my socks off. It came out recently in DVD and is available at Amazon. It's by Visconti, a really good director. It puts the American versions of this story to shame.
Another is better known, Kiss Me Deadly. Its private eye doesn't operate by the classic Dashiell Hammett/Raymond Chandler moral structure of a private code that lets a man drag himself through the worst filth of all the layers of the world and still come out with some sort of cleanliness at the end -- he's just a flat out jerk himself, without apology. It's a fun subversion of private eye schtick, and the star comes off as an uneasy mingling of likable and despicable. The weird camera angles, harshly contrasting lighting, and strange framing of film noir is often taken to an extreme. Bonus is the glowing suitcase full of deadly mystery that Quentin Tarantino did an homage to in Pulp Fiction.
Finally, The Long Goodbye is interesting fun. Elliot Gould takes it on the chin big for a friend, and it has one of my favorite endings in movies ever, low key but hilarious and something I have to admit I could identify with. Again, completely subverting the standard private eye business of keeping some sort of inviolable moral code in the center of all kinds of nastiness. I won't give it away.
OOT rarely disappoints me, and it certainly hasn't this time. Thanks fellas, I've made a list and I'll try and get hold of as many of these movies as possible when I get back to the States.
Dominic
09-20-2005, 06:50 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Great thread. Nice to see folks with an appreciation for stuff that isn't just what came out in the last 10 minutes.
I'll chime in with three more obscure ones since lots of the more well known ones have been taken.
"Ossessione" is the first film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, and is a nicely amoral rendering, much more vicious and sexual than you'd see in an American film of the time. It's a black and white Italian film classic and really knocked my socks off. It came out recently in DVD and is available at Amazon. It's by Visconti, a really good director. It puts the American versions of this story to shame.
Another is better known, Kiss Me Deadly. Its private eye doesn't operate by the classic Dashiell Hammett/Raymond Chandler moral structure of a private code that lets a man drag himself through the worst filth of all the layers of the world and still come out with some sort of cleanliness at the end -- he's just a flat out jerk himself, without apology. It's a fun subversion of private eye schtick, and the star comes off as an uneasy mingling of likable and despicable. The weird camera angles, harshly contrasting lighting, and strange framing of film noir is often taken to an extreme. Bonus is the glowing suitcase full of deadly mystery that Quentin Tarantino did an homage to in Pulp Fiction.
Finally, The Long Goodbye is interesting fun. Elliot Gould takes it on the chin big for a friend, and it has one of my favorite endings in movies ever, low key but hilarious and something I have to admit I could identify with. Again, completely subverting the standard private eye business of keeping some sort of inviolable moral code in the center of all kinds of nastiness. I won't give it away.
[/ QUOTE ]
Kiss Me Deadly is classic, hard-boiled noir. Love the apocalyptic ending that the studios DIDN'T want - in the original theatrical release, you see Mike Hammer escape to the beach after the mysterious "glowing briefcase" destroys the house....in the alternate ending, Aldrich does away with that, suggesting that the briefcase is literally Pandora's box - and will destroy the world.
Altman's "The Long Goodbye" was an attempt at turning Marlowe upside down - making him completely ineffective and apathatic. Casting the biggest counter-culture movie star in the world at that time - Elliot Gould (no, he wasn't always Monica and Ross's Dad on Friends) only solidified that attempt. It's a great film, with a great cast - Sterling Hayden, Jim Bouton (ofBall Four fame), Henry Gibson, director Mark Rydell as the bad guy, and an early appearance by the now-Govenor of California himself. Great fukin' flick.
12ozLongneck
09-20-2005, 08:39 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Altman's "The Long Goodbye" was an attempt at turning Marlowe upside down - making him completely ineffective and apathatic. Casting the biggest counter-culture movie star in the world at that time - Elliot Gould (no, he wasn't always Monica and Ross's Dad on Friends) only solidified that attempt. It's a great film, with a great cast - Sterling Hayden, Jim Bouton (ofBall Four fame), Henry Gibson, director Mark Rydell as the bad guy, and an early appearance by the now-Govenor of California himself. Great fukin' flick.
[/ QUOTE ]
Speaking of 1970s takes on Chandler, what does everyone think about 1978 version of The Big Sleep? I've watched the first 20 minutes several times, but haven't been able to make myself watch the entire thing for some reason. Is it worth a look?
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