The Big Sleep (1946)

The Big Sleep isn't just a detective film; it's the detective film. The characters are genre archetypes (cynical shamus, dodgy heiress, blackmailed rich man and assorted gamblers, chiselers and goons), and its dialogue crackles with the peculiar mix of wit, intrigue and sexual innuendo that defines "hard-boiled". The seedily corrupt atmosphere clings to everything, much like the fetid air of the hothouse where the hero-detective meets his new client. So thoroughly does The Big Sleep cast its spell that it's the rare film which gets away with having an incomprehensible plot. Event by event, the film is so engrossing that you end up not caring who did what to whom. The filmmakers themselves gave up trying to figure out the mystery. During production, director Howard Hawks and his trio of screenwriters famously realized that one of the story's murders had no killer and cabled novelist Raymond Chandler for assistance. As Chandler later said: "They sent me a wire . . . , and dammit I didn't know either."

Much of the film's magic derives from the re-teaming of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, whose marriage after Bacall's scorching debut in To Have and Have Not made the pair one of Hollywood's best-known couples. Warner Brothers rushed The Big Sleep into production to capitalize on the Bogart/Bacall chemistry, and the film was completed less than a year later, with scenes clearly intended to echo Bacall's debut (e.g., having her sing with a jazz band, as she did in To Have and Have Not). The trailer proudly announced: "That man Bogart—and that woman Bacall—are that way again!"


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