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The Big Sleep (1946)

Director(s) Howard Hawks
Producer(s) Howard Hawks (uncredited), Jack L. Warner
Top Genres Crime, Film Adaptation, Film Noir, Mystery, Thriller/Suspense
Top Topics Book-Based
More Films Directed by Howard Hawks More Films Produced by Jack L. Warner More Films from 1946 More Films from the 1940s Top Classic Movies of the 1940s Top Book-Based Films

The Big Sleep Overview:

The Big Sleep (1946) was a Crime - Film Noir Film directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Howard Hawks and Jack L. Warner.

The film was based on the novel of the same name written by Raymond Chandler published in 1939.

SYNOPSIS

Chandler's first novel introduced private detective Philip Marlowe, and The Big Sleep set the standard for private detective movies. Down-at-the-heels private eye Marlowe gets the assignment to clean up after the daughters of a dying millionaire, but dead people have a nasty habit of trailing in their wake. The famously tortuous storyline (Hawks supposedly asked Chandler to clarify a plot point about the murder of the family chauffeur; the novelist hadn't a clue as to who did the deed) seems beside the point when Bogart and Bacall are on-screen. The final release was recut to include more of their scenes together. A must! Remade in 1978.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

The Big Sleep was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1997.

The Big Sleep BlogHub Articles:

Robert Mitchum as a Contemporary Marlowe in The Big Sleep

By Rick29 on Nov 4, 2019 From Classic Film & TV Cafe

Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. The biggest knock against Michael Winner's 1978 adaptation of The Big Sleep was his decision to transplant the story to contemporary England. It was surely an odd choice, especially since Raymond Chandler's novels paint a rich, vibrant portrait of urban California life in... Read full article

The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)

By Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 14, 2018 From The Stop Button

A lot goes unspoken in The Big Sleep. It’s very much set in a wartime Los Angeles, but there’s never much said about wartime conditions or Los Angeles. When private detective Humphrey Bogart goes around the city, investigating, he’s only ever encountering women (beautiful women at that, becaus... Read full article

Thoughts on The Big Sleep (1946)

By Carol Martinheira on Apr 29, 2018 From The Old Hollywood Garden

Thoughts on The Big Sleep (1946) On April 29, 2018 By CarolIn Uncategorized I like to say I have a love-hate relationship with The Big Sleep. I don’t. I love The Big Sleep. And it grows on me every time I watch it. Maybe because I understand it a little bit better ea... Read full article

The Big Sleep (1946)

on Sep 6, 2017 From Journeys in Classic Film

By 1946 actor Humphrey Bogart fit into the role of detective Philip Marlowe so perfectly it might as well have been his favorite pair of shoes. Though this was Bogie’s own time playing the detective, The Big Sleep was simply a culmination of his past films coming together in perfect unison. He... Read full article

Day 26 of Noirvember: Don’t Snooze on The Big Sleep (1946)

By shadowsandsatin on Nov 27, 2016 From Shadows and Satin

Tune in to TCM on November 27th for The Big Sleep (1946), starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, directed by Howard Hawks, and containing what wins the prize for one of noirs most convoluted plots. Click below for one of my many favorite scenes from the film, featuring Bogart and Sonia Darrin. ... Read full article

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The Big Sleep Quotes:

Philip Marlowe: I collect blondes and bottles too.
Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, Eddie, you don't have anybody watching me, do you? Tailing me in a gray Plymouth coupe, maybe?
Eddie Mars: No, why should I?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I can't imagine, unless you're worried about where I am all the time.
Eddie Mars: I don't like you that well.
General Sternwood: I assume they have all the usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves.
[making a prank phone call]
Philip Marlowe: What can I do for you? I can do what? Where? Oh, no, I wouldn't like that. Neither would my daughter.
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The Big Sleep Facts
Charles Waldron's (Gen Sternwood) last film. He died before the film premiered. However, he appeared in three other 1946 releases that, despite opening earlier in the year than "The Big Sleep," were shot subsequently. James Stewart recreated the role in the 1978 remake in one of his last roles. Coincidentally, Waldron had played Stewart's father in Navy Blue and Gold.
Raymond Chandler claimed that Martha Vickers gave such an intense performance as Carmen Sternwood that she completely overshadowed Lauren Bacall, and that much of Vickers' performance ended up on the cutting room floor as a result.
The film was completed on January 12, 1945 and was shown to American servicemen overseas, but was not released in the United States at that time. With the end of World War II, Warners pushed back the release of The Big Sleep in favor of its completed war-themed films, among these films was Confidential Agent, which also starred Lauren Bacall. After her performance in that film was panned by the critics, agent Charles K. Feldman convinced Jack L. Warner that another failure would ruin Bacall's career. In a letter dated November 16, 1945, Feldman wrote Warner that "...if Bacall receives the same type of general reviews and criticisms on The Big Sleep, which she definitely will receive unless changes are made, you might lose one of your most important assets. Though the additional scenes will only cost in the neighborhood of probably $25,000 or $50,000, in my opinion this should be done even if the cost should run to $250,000." Feldman advised Warner to "give the girl at least three or four additional scenes with Bogart of the insolent and provocative nature that she had in <a href="films.php?film_id=284&film_title=To+Have+and+Have+
The fussy persona that Marlowe adopts upon arriving in Geiger's bookstore has been a subject of argument for years; Lauren Bacall said that Humphrey Bogart came up with it while Howard Hawks claimed in interviews that it was his idea. What both of them failed to notice is that it was in the original book ("I had my horn-rimmed glasses on. I put my voice high and let a bird twitter in it."); all Bogart did was elaborate on it.
The automobile Bogart uses in "The Big Sleep" is the same car he used as Roy Earle in the 1941 film "High Sierra".
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