Big Sleep, The (1946)
Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
Honors:
“Bogie and Bacall,” an acting partnership that would be one
of 1940s Hollywood’s more famous romantic duos. The on-screen chemistry
reunited in the film noir The Big Sleep
would lead to the two stars’ marriage to one another, the rescue of Bacall’s
career, and the continued success of an icon of the genre. Suffering from a
convoluted story and the film having been held from release for a year and a
half, the picture would become a classic of the genre and of a real-life
Hollywood couple working together on screen.
The Big Sleep is a
film noir of a private detective following a case of a wealthy family’s debts,
sending him on a trail of blackmail and murder, discovering love along the way.
Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired by the wealthy retired General
Sternwood (Charles Waldon) to investigate debts in the name of his youngest
daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers). His eldest daughter, the sharp-tongued Vivian
(Lauren Bacall), believes her father has alternate intentions with the hiring
Marlowe, sharing information and her disdain for of the private investigator,
but their relationship turns into to a form of flirtatious fascination as the
case begins to spiral out of control.
The man Carmen is indebted to is murdered and as she is
being blackmailed with scandalous pictures of her, leading down a road of
further outrageous blackmail and slayings. Vivian is mixed up in the matters
used as a pawn to throw off Marlowe by real man blackmailing the Sternwood’s, a
gangster named Eddie Mars (John Ridgely). Ultimately Marlowe with help from
Vivian stop Mars, exonerating Vivian of her connections to the criminals, as
the two’s sharp witted relationship begins to flourish into a romance.
The film’s plot is a bit confusing, maneuvering around from
plot point to plot point loosely held together, from offshoot to offshoot, and
is solved by unimaginable trains of thought and a serious of fortunate events.
It is a mash up of mysteries and clichés mixed together to keep the audience
guessing at what exactly is going on, for when we think we have the plot pegged
it just gets deeper to a convoluted unimaginable depth that ends ups being
rather simple and somewhat unfuflfilling. So what makes this movie so well
liked in cinema history is the acting? The answer lies in the chemistry of
Bacall and Bogart, as well as the layers of film noir goodness that noir
aficionados love about the genre rolled in a tight package with marvelous black
and white production.
Yes, the plot is confusing, so much so that when the cast
and crew were shooting all were questioning plot points for certain parts of
the story. When producers approached Raymond Chandler, the author of the
original novel, with questions concerning certain plot points, including if one
character was murdered or committed suicide, even Chandler didn’t have an
answer. With this being it was of only a minor character, the Sternwood’s
driver, it is shrugged off and never answered, being a McGuffin of sorts. The questions of
who killed who and why with a slew of supporting characters played by the likes
of John Ridgely, Dorothy Malone, Bob Steele, and Elisha Cook Jr, is what makes
the story appealing for audiences. However, what makes it all work are the
stars.
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| Scenes were added for Bacall with fear that Vickers (left) was outplaying her. |
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were coming off successful
adaptation of Ernest Hemmingway’s To Have
and Have Not where their
chemistry on screen radiated so much that they were immediately teamed up once
again under the direction of Howard Hawks. Production for The Big Sleep concluded in the first half of 1945 as World War II
was coming to an end and Warner Bros. decided they had too many WWII pictures
in the pipeline and need to concentrate their efforts to maximize their return
by focusing all the studio’s efforts wrapping up these pictures and releasing them
as soon as possible, temporarily shelving pictures like The Big Sleep despite being practically finished.
Evidence of The Big
Sleep’s production timing is evident in the feature with war time rationing
markers on vehicles, and even a female taxi driver, something that was more
prominent during the war years in America as men were fighting overseas. The
lag in release time would both hinder and help the eventual premiere of the
picture. Despite the success of To Have
and Have Not and Warner Bros. marketing strategy for then 20 year-old
Lauren Bacall, with The Big Sleep put
on the back burner, her next picture to release was Confidential Agent starring opposite Charles Boyer which was met
with negativity for the actress. Bacall was seen as too stiff and unlikable,
lacking all the audiences loved about her from be role opposite Bogart in To Have and Have Not. Warner Bros. was
beginning to panic that their investment in Bacall was turning and needed to be
saved before she was deemed box office poison. To quickly correct Bacall’ image
Warner Bros. could reshape The Big Sleep
to help them return on the invest on their young actress.
A major appeal for Lauren Bacall was her chemistry with
Humphrey Bogart, whom she was sharing an off-screen romance with despite being
25 years his junior. Early cuts of the picture were shown to audiences of
soldiers during the later stages of the war, allowing producers to see where
they could improve the film before wide release. Fearing that Bacall was being
out overshadowed by the acting of Martha Vickers, who portrays the flirtatious
little sister Carmen, Vickers role was trimmed back and new scenes written and
shot to accentuate the sharp witted and provocative relationship between
Bogart’s Marlowe and Bacall’s Vivian. The result is a steamy double entendre
filled conversations that spice up the chemistry further for the two stars who
by the time of the summer 1946 release were already married and one of the
industry’s most popular couples.
Much of the book’s original innuendo was edited for purposes
of Hollywood’s Production Code. This cut out the gangster connection to a pornography
ring which the character of Carmen is being manipulated into throughout the
tale. Carmen provocative nature is pared down a bit to be suitable for censors
as well, from being a sexual interest in the novel to simply flirtatious troublemaker
in the movie. Hints of homosexuality from the novel, which was a major taboo,
were left completely out as well as such subject matter was being held out of
motion pictures at the time.
The Big Sleep
opened in August 1946, a year after the conclusion of World War II to mixed
reviews. For the many that found the plot confusing and jumbled there were
those that were delighted by the chemistry of Bacall and Bogart with their
unique relationship on screen. The film did well enough to make plenty of
profit for any picture of its day, but time would make the picture a classic,
praised by many, and in some cases considered one best American films of all
time. That is open to debate, but there is not debate about the appeal of the
couple that would be known as “Bogie-n-Bacall.”
Decades later in the 1990s a copy of the original Howard
Hawks cut of the feature, the one screen for US GI’s during World War II, was
discovered within film archive of UCLA and with support of wealthy fans of the
feature, most notably Playboy editor Hugh Hefner, had the original cut of the
cut restored and once again presented to audiences. Reactions to the version
are generally mixed when compared to the released version that we know. Many
reviewers claim to like the 1946 version for its characters rather than the
1945 more plot-centric version. The
debate between versions make for good conversation among film fans, but in the
end the 1946 version remains as the film noir many have come to enjoy so much
for all these years.
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