The Big Sleep (1946) Humphrey Bogart

The Big Sleep (1946) The Big Sleep is a 1946 film noir directed by Howard Hawks, the first film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart as detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as the female lead in a film about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its results." William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman co-wrote the screenplay. In 1997, the U.S. Library of Congress deemed this film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," and added it to the National Film Registry. STORYLINE Summoned by the dying General Sternwood, Philip Marlowe is asked to deal with several problems that are troubling his family. Marlowe finds that each problem centers about the disappearance of Sternwood's favoured employee who has left with a mobster's wife. Each of the problems becomes a cover for something else as Marlowe probes. SYNOPSIS Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe is summoned to the mansion of General Sternwood, a wealthy, aging invalid with two wild young daughters: the predatory, childish Carmen and the divorced Vivian Rutledge. Sternwood explains that Arthur Gwynne Geiger, a rare book dealer, is demanding payment of Carmen's gambling debts. Sternwood adds that earlier, a man named Joe Brody made a similar request, which was handled by ex-bootlegger Sean Regan, who has since disappeared. Although Marlowe advises Sternwood to pay the money, he agrees to look into the matter for him. After he leaves the general, Vivian asks to speak with him. She assumes that Sternwood hired Marlowe to look into Regan's disappearance, but Marlowe reveals nothing. At Geiger's store, Marlowe questions Agnes, the attendant, about rare books, and her confused response convinces him that the store is a cover for some illegal activity. The attractive bookseller across the street confirms his guess, and Marlowe waits at her shop for Geiger to make an appearance. Marlowe follows Geiger to his house, where, after a while, Carmen arrives. Later, Marlowe hears a scream followed by gunshots. Inside the house, Marlowe discovers a drugged Carmen with Geiger's dead body. Marlowe also finds a hidden camera with no film in it and a book containing the names of Geiger's blackmail victims. After Marlowe drives Carmen home, he returns to Geiger's, but in the meantime, the body has been removed. Later, one of Sternwood's cars containing the body of his chauffeur, Owen Taylor, is dredged out of the ocean. That afternoon, Vivian tells Marlowe that blackmailers have demanded $5,000 for a compromising photograph of Carmen taken at Geiger's the previous night. When Marlowe asks if she can pay the money, Vivian says she might be able to get it from Eddie Mars, the gambler whose wife ran off with Regan. Marlowe then returns to Geiger's store, where he sees two men loading Geiger's stock into their car and tails them to Brody's apartment. Later, he learns that Mars owns the house where Geiger was shot. That evening, when Vivian reports that the blackmailers failed to contact her, a skeptical Marlowe drives to Brody's apartment building. Vivian and Agnes are both hiding inside, and Carmen arrives later, intending to shoot Brody. After Marlowe disarms Carmen, Brody admits that he is the blackmailer, but denies that he killed Geiger. Marlowe forces Brody to give the photographic negative to Vivian, who then takes Carmen home. Marlowe explains that Taylor, who was in love with Carmen, shot Geiger and then accuses Brody of killing Taylor. Brody is about to tell Marlowe what information Geiger had on the Sternwoods, when he responds to a knock on the door and is shot. Marlowe catches the killer, Geiger's assistant Carol Lundgren, who believed that Brody murdered Geiger and shot him in retaliation. Now that the murders seem to be solved, Vivian tries to dismiss Marlowe, but he is convinced that Mars knows something about Regan's disappearance. Marlowe's suspicions of Mars increase when Vivian wins a lot of money gambling at Mars's club, only to have it stolen later in what appears to Marlowe to be a phony holdup. When Vivian later tells him that Regan has been found in Mexico, Marlowe believes that she is trying to throw him off Regan's trail. Subsquently, Marlowe learns from Agnes the whereabouts of Mars's wife Mona, who was supposed to have run off with Regan, and drives to the hideout, where he is taken prisoner by Mars's men. Vivian is also hiding out at the house and with her help, Marlowe shoots Mars's hired killer Canino, and they make their escape. Marlowe then lures Mars to Geiger's house and accuses him of blackmailing Vivian to keep Carmen's murder of Regan secret. After Mars is mistakenly killed by his own men, Marlowe tells the police that Mars murdered Regan and privately exacts Vivian's promise that she will send Carmen away where she will be prevented from hurting anyone else. Cast & Crew Howard Hawks Director Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge John Ridgely as Eddie Mars Martha Vickers as Carmen Sternwood Dorothy Malone as Bookstore proprietress Peggy Knudson as Mona Mars Regis Toomey as Bernie Ohls Charles Waldron as General Sternwood Charles D. Brown as Norris, the butler Bob Steele as Canino Elisha Cook Jr. as Harry Jones Release Date 31 Aug 1946 Color/BW Black and White Sound Mono (RCA Sound System) Production Dates 10 Oct 1944--12 Jan 1945 addl scenes and retakes began 2 Jan 1946 Duration (in mins) 113 Premiere Information New York opening: 23 Aug 1946 Distribution Company Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. Production Company Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. Company: Howard Hawks Country United States REVIEW The Big Sleep (1946) NY TIMES review from August 24, 1946 NYT Critics' Pick This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers of The Times. THE SCREEN; 'The Big Sleep,' Warner Film in Which Bogart and Bacall Are Paired Again, Opens at Strand By BOSLEY CROWTHER Published: August 24, 1946 If somebody had only told us—the script-writers, preferably—just what it is that happens in the Warners' and Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep," we might be able to give you a more explicit and favorable report on this over-age melodrama which came yesterday to the Strand. But with only the foggiest notion of who does what to whom—and we watched it with closest attention—we must be frankly disappointing about it. For "The Big Sleep" is one of those pictures in which so many cryptic things occur amid so much involved and devious plotting that the mind becomes utterly confused. And, to make it more aggravating, the brilliant detective in the case is continuously making shrewd deductions which he stubbornly keeps to himself. What with two interlocking mysteries and a great many characters involved, the complex of blackmail and murder soon becomes a web of utter bafflement. Unfortunately, the cunning script-writers have done little to clear it at the end. This is a frequent failing in films made from Raymond Chandler's books, as this one is; and if you haven't read the original, as we haven't, you are stuck. It is something about a detective who undertakes a job of private and perilous sleuthing for a decadent millionaire, mainly to save the old man's daughters from some blackmailers and bums. And since quite obviously the daughters are bums, too, it has a not very lofty moral tone. Much of the terseness and toughness of Mr. Chandler's style has been caught in the movement and dialogue of William Faulkner's and Leigh Brackett's script. And Mr. Hawks, who produced and directed, has kept the action racy and raw. Everyone in the story, except the old father, seem to carry guns, which they use at one time or another with a great deal of flourish and éclat. And fists are frequently unlimbered, just to vary the violence. Students of underworld minutiae will find plenty of it here. Through it all, Humphrey Bogart stalks his cold and laconic way as the resolute private detective who has a mindéand a bodyémade of steel. And Lauren Bacall (Mrs. Bogart) plays the older of the daughters languidly. (Miss Bacall is a dangerous looking female, but she still hasn't learned to act.) A dozen or so other actors play various tramps and tough guys acidly, and the whole thing comes off a poisonous picture lasting a few minutes shy of two hours. But, for all that, it's likely to leave you confused and dissatisfied. And, by the way, would somebody also tell us the meaning of that title, "The Big Sleep." On the stage at the Strand are Bob Crosby and his band, the Town Criers, Don Cummings and the Dunhills. THE BIG SLEEP; screen play by William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler; directed and produced by Howard Hawks at Warner Brothers. At the Strand. Marlowe . . . . . Humphrey Bogart Vivian . . . . . Lauren Bacall Carmen . . . . . Martha Vickers Gen. Sternwood . . . . . Charles Waldron Eddie Mars . . . . . John Ridgely Norris . . . . . Charles D. Brown Bernie Ohis . . . . . Regis Toomey Joe Brody . . . . . Louis Jean Jeydt Harry Jones . . . . . Elisha Cook Jr. Canino . . . . . Bob Steele Agnes . . . . . Sonia Darrin Arthur Geiger . . . . . Theodore Von Eltz Mona Mars . . . . . Peggy Knudsen Girl Taxi Driver . . . . . Joy Barlowe Girl in Bookshop . . . . . Dorothy Malone

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