The Big Sleep - Review

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The Big Sleep
Bogie (as Marlowe) and Bacall (as Vivian Rutledge)	Bogie's second outing as a famous pulp fiction detective (the first was as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon), and also Bogie and Bacall's second film together, turned into another huge hit for Warner Brothers. Based on the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name, The Big Sleep was a very important project for the studio, who went to great effort to replicate the enormous success of the earlier 1944 Bogie and Bacall pairing in To Have and Have Not by re-hiring Howard Hawks to again direct (as he had in To Have and Have Not), and again hiring William Faulkner to adapt the book to screen (as he had for To Have and Have Not). Leigh Bracket also contributed to the screen adaption, as did Jules Furthman (also a screenwriter on To Have and Have Not).
In The Big Sleep Bogie (as Philip Marlowe) is hired by a wealthy member of the not so morally upright social elite (Charles Waldron as General Sternwood) to take care of a blackmailer who is extorting him over the misadventures of his young and extremely wayward daughter Carmen (played brilliantly by Martha Vickers). The case seems very simple on the surface, but of course the plot soon thickens, and we find ourselves deep in a world of murder and multi-layered deceptions. Bacall's performance as Carmen's older sister Vivian is of course central to the film in that she plays Marlowe's love interest, but also central in that she herself is deeply entwined in the complex web of murder and deception as well. Overall one of Bogart's best films, but also one of his most intellectually challenging, as the plot is infamously hard to follow due to it's complexity (I seriously considered keeping a notepad of characters names and relationships to each other while watching the film just to keep track). As is usually the case with Bogart's films we have a wonderful list of supporting actors, with special mention going to John Ridgely, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Bob Steele, Charles D.Brown, Elisha Cook Jr, Louis Jean Heydt and the uncredited Joy Barlow (as the Taxi Driver). The DVD The DVD release is rather special in that it gives us TWO versions of the film. Completed and ready for release in March 1945, the film was not actually released until August 31st 1946. There were two reasons for this. One was that with World War II coming to an end, Warner was anxious to quickly release all their war films (delaying non-war themed films in the process). The other reason was because the film underwent a small re-shoot, with several scenes removed and several others added, at the recommendation of Bacall's agent Charles K. Feldman. The changes were primarily aimed at improving Bacall's role in the film, and more successfully highlighting her chemistry with Bogart. Having viewed and compared the pre-release version, the re-shoots were very successful in this regard, and integral to the success of the final product that was eventually released in 1946. The DVD also provides us with an analysis and comparison of the two versions by UCLA's Robert Gitt. This feature is quite informative and runs 16 min 30 sec. We also get the film's original Theatrical Trailer and some "Behind the Scenes" text information as well as a very brief "Cast and Crew" text page. For those who have trouble telling which version is which (and it can be confusing as it is a double sided disk with each version on different sides), to play the official 1946 Theatrical Release version look for the side with A on the center ring of the disk. The pre-release version is on the other side (again identifiable by a small B in the center ring on that side).