The Big Sleep

I haven't seen the Humphrey Bogart version of this Chandler remake but I enjoyed this one very much. Robert Mitchum brought great class to the role of Marlowe as few else could have done. His shady look, cool persona, and hilarious one-liners help to explain why Chandler is one of the greatest crime writers of all time. I haven't read any of the books but after seeing this film I am certainly much more interested in them.

It came as a surprise to me that Michael Winner was the director for the film. A man I associate with expensive dinners at expensive restaurants. But after watching this, and Death Wish, I have a new-found respect for eating in style. This film is not a Peckinpah, but it still manages to be incredibly effective in it's delivery. I like the car Mitchum drives too, a Mercedes soft-top.

The video is in widescreen by the way, requiring a screen re-adjustment or it'll look silly. Great performances from all of the actors and a superbly enjoyable plot in a film that has aged very well.

Some people criticised this film for being in the English countryside and that it doesn't bear up with the film noir style. I disagree, film noir is not limited to shady city streets, as this film goes to show.

Chandler's novel is pushed ahead by about 40 years. His Philip Marlowe is aged about 30 years. The location is changed by the combined breadth of the United States and the Atlantic Ocean. It should come as no surprise that this doesn't work at all. The scandal from which Marlowe shields the old man was so much more significant in the period in which the book was set. (Who, for example, really would be heart-broken or even especially shocked to learn in 1978 that his daughter had been photographed in the nude? Granted, that the secrets get darker, but the point is that so much is diluted.) Mitchum is a very, very fine actor, and when he was, say, 30 to 40 years old he would have been a good choice to play Marlowe; but an important aspect of Marlowe is exactly that he is so weary of spirit while still a relatively young man; we expect the old to feel old. And...a film noir in the English country-side? I don't think so!

You may regard the 1946 version as a classic because of the Bogart-Bacall pairing. As a literary adaptation, this version, however, is much better.

First of all, the plot stays true to the novel, whereas the older version had a plot ruined by the restrictions of the Hayes code, so that it contains numerous loose ends and unexplained developments.

Secondly, Robert Mitchum impersonates Marlowe much better that Humphrey Bogart. Bogart essentially recycles his role of Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon". Yet, Spade and Marlowe are very different characters. While Spade is a cynic who just barely remembers the remnants of morality (and Bogart is brilliant in that role), Marlowe is way beyond that point. He walks around people in a distanced, almost detached way. Only when he spots a glimpse of humanity in his fellow men, he is willing to engage himself (as with General Sternwood in "The Big Sleep"). Mitchum plays this character with great understatement, as it should be done, while Bogart makes Marlowe just another hard-boiled detective, which could be replaced by any other one.

Finally, both Sarah Miles and Candy Clark (while not being necessarily great actresses) bring over the lunacy of the Sternwood daughters beautifully. While the scenes between Bacall and Bogart a great, they are out of place in this plot, in which there is no place left for romance. It might have been appropriate for the characters of Marlowe and Linda Loring in "The Long Goodbye", but hardly in a movie adaption of a novel, in which Marlowe remarks "both Sternwood women were giving him hell".

So, while this movie transfers the plot to another time and another place, it is a much better adaption of the novel than the version often regarded as a classic.

"The Big Sleep" '78 is not so much a remake of the earlier Howard Hawks favorite as a more faithful reading of the Raymond Chandler novel, albeit transposed by screenwriter / director Michael Winner ("Death Wish") to modern day London. A very appealing Robert Mitchum reprises the role of private eye Philip Marlowe (after his portrayal in "Farewell, My Lovely" in 1975), hired by dying American military man General Sternwood (James Stewart, who makes the most of two brief scenes). The case is a matter of investigating a blackmailer...at least, that would *seem* to be the case. As Marlowe finds out, there's an awful lot going on here, but he handles all of it in great style.

Winner treats this material with quite a bit of humor, rendering it positively silly on a frequent basis. It makes one believe that he had contempt for it. But Chandlers' story is fortunately still engrossing, and it's the kind of thing that really keeps viewers on their toes, trying to pay attention to all the details and twists. (Since there's much exposition to digest, viewers can't afford to let their attention wander.) The film *looks* absolutely great, with fine use of locations and lovely photography. It's spiced up with some (tastefully done) nudity, but it's never ever very violent.

The main draw is a sterling group of American and British actors. Sarah Miles, Richard Boone, Joan Collins, Edward Fox, John Mills, Oliver Reed (typically amusing as a threatening gangster / casino owner), Harry Andrews, Colin Blakely, Richard Todd, Diana Quick, and James Donald are all present and accounted for. Mitchum anchors the proceedings with his colorful performance, but dragging things down quite a bit is the way overdone airhead shtick by Candy Clark, playing Sternwoods' younger daughter. Usually she's pretty reliable, but here she's much too annoying. Mitchum and company do have fun with the sometimes witty and lively dialogue.

Well paced, and fairly energetic, but overall not especially memorable. Some people might want to just revisit the Bogie and Bacall version instead.

Six out of 10.

Raymond Chandler's plots can drive you crazy. The most admirable thing about Chandler's stories is his language ("hard boiled") and the way he uses it to evoke a Los Angeles of the 30s and 40s that is so infected with corruption that, like a ripe pustule, we expect it to pop momentarily.

And that's what makes it so difficult to transfer his works to the screen. You almost have to have a voice-over from Philip Marlowe otherwise you not only get lost in the various plot twists but you miss the adamantly low-brow tropes -- "her hair was the color of gold in old paintings," or, "she threw me a glance I could feel in my hip pocket." "Chinatown," set in 1937 LA, was released to great critical and public acclaim in 1974. The very next year, Robert Mitchum tackled Philip Marlowe in "Farewell, My Lovely" and he was great, and so was the production, even if it was not the masterpiece that "Chinatown" was. Nobody will ever make a masterpiece out of a Chandler story because, after all, a masterpiece usually starts out with a coherent plot.

So the trick is to capture on screen what Chandler's prose evokes on the written page. Style is everything. "Farewell My Lovely" had it. "The Big Sleep," alas, doesn't. The director hasn't really done much to help things. In the 1946 version of "The Big Sleep," Howard Hawks at least had some fun with the characters. (Bogart and the horn-rimmed glasses in the book shop.) Hawks also allowed some humor in the dialog. ("She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.") Philip Marlowe with his resolutely seedy presence belongs in the marginal zone of Los Angeles, not in the uptrodden neighborhoods of London. He belongs in a trench coat, wearing an older fedora, not in the powder blue suits of Saville Row. ("I own a hat and a coat and a gun," he tells Nulty in "Farewell My Lovely," "and everything I touch turns to s***.") In this film we have to put up with a confident and compassionate Marlowe, striding through the fancy decor instead of slouching, never touching a drop of alcohol. And Mitchum doesn't add much to the story besides his usual heft. As James Agee once said of him, his casual languor suggests Bing Crosby supersaturated on barbiturates.

That reminds me. I couldn't help wondering, while I watched this, how much booze had gone into the production. I forget whether Chandler had quit drinking by the time he wrote this, but Mitchum himself was hardly an amateur. Olivier had kicked Cyril Cusack out of the Old Vic for showing up drunk for a performance of "Doctor's Dilemma" and reciting lines from another of Shaw's plays. Richard Boone was evidently immobilized during his last few years and Oliver Reed died of drink.

Still, look at the actors in this thing. In support are Edward Fox, Harry Andrews, James Donald, Colin Blakely, James Stewart, and Richard Todd. And all of them are up to the task, true professionals, with not a hollow note struck. I'm tempted to call the cast "peerless" but I don't know if it's permitted if there's a theatrical knight among them. Richard Boone is outstanding as Canino -- a villainous wreck, hobbling about on a broken foot, cackling over his own sliminess, howling with unrestrained glee as he watches a harmless little man whom he has just poisoned crash through a glass door and die.

Also notable are the locations and the art direction. It may not be sleazy Los Angeles in 1941 but London and its interiors look just fine. London has never looked less grimy. There is no rain or fog, the streets are clean, narrow and lined with classy book shops, and people tend to drive new and expensive cars.

Well, the movie is done with dash and style, no doubt about that. But it's the wrong style. Marlowe belongs in the 1940s. In the 1940s pornography and dope could get you serious jail time -- just ask Mitchum.

I didn't much care for it the first time I saw this. The second time was easier going because I'd lowered the bar of my expectation.