The Big Sleep

"My, my, my! Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains! You know, you're the second guy I've met today that seems to think a gat in the hand means the world by the tail."

While the story might be hard to follow at times and if even the author of the book Raymond Chandler doesn't know who killed the chauffeur and yet you don't even care a bit because the film is so damn entertaining says a lot.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall own the screen here. They own the dialogue and how awesome do you need to be to be in your early 20's and be up there in screen presence with the legendary Humphrey Bogart? Lauren Bacall was something else. And rewatching the Big Sleep about a decade later still shows me I really love seeing Bogart. I love his presence and this role was made for him.

What I also really like is the character of Phillip Marlowe. I loved how Elliot Gould portrays him in "the Long Goodbye" and how Bogart plays him here. Now I'm really curious how Dick Powell portrays him in "Murder, my Sweet."

Anyway if you haven't seen the Big Sleep yet and you want to see a film-noir with great, sharp dialogue, this is one for you.

There comes a point in the film where trying to follow the plot becomes secondary to just watching Bogart spar with just about every secondary character in the film. That’s probably for the best since the actual plot and mystery become incredibly confusing and it’s the interplay between the characters that keeps this entertaining. It’s no surprise that the scenes between Bogart and Bacall are the highlight as Bacall is pretty much the only one in the film that can hold her own with Bogart, but this is primarily a showcase for Bogart’s charisma and star power that few have been able to replicate.

I was somewhat saddened by the fact that they changed the ending, which was different in the book, where there was a major twist, right after Marlowe had a superb monologue. But even so, the film is a marvel to watch.

Cinema Paco 2: great classic black cinema, with great actors, direction, style. That Humphrey Bogart, that Lauren Bacall

Who honestly cares about the - let's say convoluted - story? It just looks beautiful and I can't stop watching Bogart doing his thing: wearing his hat, rocking his trench coat, bantering with virtually every women he encounters. Plus: the cars. It's just beautiful.

Most interesting detail: instead of licence plates those cars had some kind of registration card attached to their steering wheel (but seemingly no door locks).

Great fun to watch Bogie and Bacall, but there's not much to recommend the movie beyond their chemistry.

Points for mood and atmosphere, but minus points for being utterly incomprehensible. Even reading the Wikipedia plot summary after having watched the movie is pretty rough--maybe I'm just dense, but I struggled to follow anything that happened here, which was unfortunate.

“Bogart and Bacall” shouts the poster, and that’s precisely what we get. Long, heavy doses of both stars, just as their very public off-screen romance was at its peak. For Bogart, it’s just another day at the office. He growls through two novels’ worth of witty dialogue, wears a trench coat and fedora like a second skin, throws and catches haymakers, flirts with all the girls and outsmarts all the gangsters. It’s Humphrey Bogart as the private detective in a noir movie; you probably already know how that’s going to look and sound. This was only Bacall’s second film (though a delayed release meant it’s actually listed third on her filmography) and, though her performance often feels stiff and forced, those qualities suit the role. Which, from all indications, was written and tailored specifically for her.

As that movie poster implies, _The Big Sleep_ is very clearly a showcase of the stars first and a cohesive story second. Or maybe third, actually, behind the dark and moody atmosphere. Come to think of it, the story might not even place. It’s a tangled web of similar characters with confusing motives; a messy spiral of blackmail, murder, intimidation and thinly-veiled innuendo that only Bogart can navigate with any shred of confidence. He’s two steps ahead of the bad guys, which puts him three ahead of the audience. Trying to keep up amidst all the false fronts and betrayals is an exercise in futility. Instead, at least, we can enjoy the tasty scenery, admire the pointy dialogue and appreciate the film’s acrobatic efforts to address risqué subjects without offending the censors.

Hard to follow without using Wikipedia as a guide. MUST be watched more than once.