The Big Sleep ***** (1946, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Charles Waldron, Charles D Brown, Elisha Cook Jr) – Classic Movie Review 69

Director Howard Hawks turns Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled novel The Big Sleep into a brilliantly atmospheric, edge-of-seat suspenseful and exciting film noir masterpiece. Humphrey Bogart is everyone’s idea of Chandler’s cynical anti-hero, the smooth, cocksure if down-at-heel private eye Philip Marlowe.

In the archetypal story, Marlowe is hired to protect the wealthy General Sternwood (Charles Waldron)’s wayward young daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) from a blackmailer (Theodore Von Eltz) with embarrassing pictures of her. This involves Marlowe in an ever-increasingly taut and deadly game that includes several killings, being beaten up and a memorable love-hate relationship with Carmen’s married elder sister Vivian (Lauren Bacall).

There is no doubt that the story is a gripper all right, but what gives the movie extra real class is the perfect performances of Bogart and Bacall, the witty script with its authentic Chandler repartee (‘You’re not very tall, are you Mr Marlowe?’ ‘Next time I’ll come on stilts’), the world-weary atmosphere and the corkscrew-taut tension throughout, as well as Hawks’s effortless-seeming command of the cynical sweet-sour material.

But the movie demands audiences pay attention: this isn’t one of those brain-in-neutral blockbusters. Hawks claimed: ‘Neither the author, the writer (William Faulkner) nor myself knew who had killed whom.’ Supposedly, Hawks even actually telegrammed Chandler to find out who killed the general’s chauffeur. Chandler replied: ‘How should I know? You figure it out.’

Are we really expected to believe that Hawks, Faulkner and Chandler couldn’t understand the plot? Well it is certainly labyrinthine, but really not that difficult to follow. Just go with the flow, keep alert, and simply yield to its dark joys. It is just so vastly entertaining.

Besides Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the cast are John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone as the Acme Book Shop proprietress (‘You begin to interest me, vaguely’, she says to Marlowe), Regis Toomey, Charles Waldron, Charles D Brown, Elisha Cook Jr, Louis Jean Heydt (as LA gangster Joe Brody), Bob Steele, Peggy Knudsen, Sonia Darrin (as Agnes Lowzier), Tom Rafferty and Theodore Von Eltz.

It is written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman, shot in black and white by Sid Hickox, produced by Howard Hawks and scored by Max Steiner.

This was Bacall’s second film with Bogart (after To Have and Have Not), made while she was falling in love with him. It was made in 1944-45, then shelved for 18 months by Warner Brothers, substantially re-shot, beefing up Bacall’s role, and released to huge acclaim after her flop and universally bad notices in Confidential Agent.

Warners’ big studio boss Jack L Warner was persuaded to re-film it by Bacall’s agent. That’s power! Warner apparently had given Hawks $50,000 to buy the rights of Chandler’s novel so he could film it with Bogart and Bacall. Hawks bought it for $5,000 and kept the change. The writer really is the last cab off the rank.

The 1945 original version of The Big Sleep is now available: it is fascinating, but it is slackly paced and lacks most of the resonance and sheer burning spark of the final 1946 version. Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman also worked on the screenplay.

Bogart on Vickers in the movie: “She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up.’

Hawks recalled that when they shot the first bookstore scene, Bogart came in and had his conversation with Sonia Darrin (as Agnes Lowzier). When the scene ended, Bogart turned to Hawks and said, ‘How was that?’ ‘Pretty dull’, said Hawks. ‘Let’s do it again.’ This time Bogart came in with his hat turned up and with a prissy air (‘You do have books, hmm?’ ‘What do those look like, grapefruit?’) And Hawks said ‘the scene became interesting’.

It was remade as The Big Sleep by Michael Winner in the UK in 1978 with Robert Mitchum, who also played Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely in 1975.

Adored screen legend Lauren Bacall died on August 12 2014, aged 89.

RIP Dorothy Malone (1925–2018).

Dorothy Malone started in movies with Convicted Woman in 1940 and this was already her 15th film, but people took notice of her captivating turn in her small role of seductive book shop proprietress. It was a key step for her on her way to her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Written on the Wind (1956).

Malone was signed by RKO at age 18 under her real name, Dorothy Maloney, and made her first film for the studio in Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943) quickly followed by The Falcon and the Co-eds (1943).

Dorothy Malone died on 19 January 2018, aged 92.

Sonia Darrin is second from the left in still from The Big Sleep (1946).

Sonia Darrin (born Sonia Paskowitz; June 16, 1924 – July 19, 2020) is best known for her role as femme fatale Agnes Lowzier in The Big Sleep, in which she plays a paramour of minor LA gangster Joe Brody (played by Louis Jean Heydt). Despite several scenes in which Agnes trades quips with Marlowe, Darrin received no onscreen credit.

She lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for over 50 years and died of natural causes in New York City at the age of 96. After Dorothy Malone died, she was the last surviving cast member of The Big Sleep.

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