This is a hero who defeats the villain of the piece by literally talking him into unintentionally commiting suicide during the Tommy Gun climax. As an adaptation of Chandler’s second Marlowe story ( Farewell, My Lovely), it arguably gets closer to the softer edges of the literary Marlowe that Bogart and Hawks took outback and drowned during one of their numerous boating trips. Just two years prior, Dick Powell originated the role of Marlowe in Edward Dmtryk’s noir, Murder, My Sweet. However, 1946’s The Big Sleep was not the first time the detective made the jump to the big screen. Published in 1939, it was Chandler’s first story with Marlowe, a wisecracking and hard-drinking private detective with a preoccupation for women and, occasionally, poetry. And they do look very, very, very cool.īefore becoming the second movie starring Bogart and Bacall, The Big Sleep was that aforementioned Raymond Chandler novel. But who cares? The Big Sleep isn’t about the labyrinthine plot that Marlowe finds himself buried in for 114 minutes it’s about just how cool he and Bacall’s Vivian Rutledge look getting out of it without breaking a sweat. “Asking me, and dammit I didn’t know either!” And for many, it surpassed their first effort, even if to this day nobody can figure out exactly what the hell is going on in The Big Sleep, and who killed whom.įamously Hawks even gathered his screenwriters, who included William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman, together to unpack the dense narrative web of Chandler’s novel before finally just wiring the author to ask what does it even mean?! The way Chandler tells it in his papers, the filmmakers asked him who exactly killed Owen Taylor, a chauffer whom audiences never met until he pops up as the second inexplicable murder victim in 10 minutes. ![]() In many ways, The Big Sleep is an encore for Hawks and his two oh, so insolent muses. It’s an aggressive cinematic force of charming apathy, intentionally manufactured around the same triumvirate of talent and bruised egos that brought Bogie and Bacall together in the first place with To Have Not. To be sure, The Big Sleep is a masterpiece of style and another victory for director Howard Hawks’ ear for rat-a-tat-tat dialogue. And in 1946, it was their dreamy and addictive outlines that preceded any names. When people still cringe at the dangerous power of suggestion tobacco can have in media, it is the specter of these two’s seductive cool that they dread. logo, we see the unmistakable silhouette of Bogie giving a light to Bacall’s hazy visage, sharing again that immortal light of their first onscreen scene in 1944’s To Have and Have Not, a smoke made up of equal parts nicotine and fairy dust. ![]() From the very first frame, even Raymond Chandler’s then very impressive name was cast in the shadow of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. ![]() Yet, they are not alone what makes The Big Sleep a timeless classic of deep cynicism and even deeper debauchery. All of these deliciously morbid ingredients were baked into what became one of the greatest noirs of the post-war era. In this context, Howard Hawks was delivering a hard-hitting crime story to audiences and dealing with seedy subjects so obscured by polite society that they can barely even be seen in the finished film: blackmail, pornography, murder, and the amoral decadence of the one-percent. ![]() When The Big Sleep premiered exactly 73 years ago today, it marked the newest silver screen adventure of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s beloved private dick.
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