The Big Sleep

source: The Big Sleep

I have never read the book, nor seen the Bogart version, so I came to this film with no preconceptions, and I found it well scripted, well acted all round, and most entertaining. Probably I will be disappointed by the Bogart version when I get to see it. Well worth watching.

I watched this piece of crap last night - it was given away with a newspaper a couple of days ago - and turned to this page expecting to find, if anything, widespread disdain but incredibly some viewers actually found SOMETHING to praise. Okay, you can see the thinking behind it, Mitchum had enjoyed some success playing Chandler's Phillip Marlowe a couple of years earlier in Farewell, My Lovely but although shot in color and tampering with Chandler's novel at least it was set in Marlowe's home turf, LA. To transplant Chandler's milieu to England is like transplanting Chekhov's dachas to New York, it's both ludicrous and unforgivable. I can't believe Michael Winner actually had the chuzpah to give himself a Screenplay credit when all he has done is to dilute and/or omit Chandler's inimitable style covering both narrative and dialogue. From the very first speech (played in Voice-Over) Winner blows it. Chandler concluded this first speech in the novel with the words 'I was well-dressed, clean-shaven and sober and I didn't care who knew it'. Those last six words are crucial to establishing the character of Marlowe - the Big Sleep was the first novel in which Marlowe appeared - so what does Winner do? Add some description of his own and OMIT those last six words. From then on it's downhill all the way. There's absolutely no chemistry between ANY of the characters in whatever combination. Equally ludicrous is the notion that in 1978 a bookstore like Geiger's would flourish in an English town. Consider: this is the kind of bookstore that purports to specialise in First Editions but is really supplying Pornography via a 'back room' accessible only to known customers who leave clutching plain brown packages. A couple of scenes later Sarah Miles shows Marlowe the * pictures of her sister and tells him that unless she pays the blackmailers what they demand the pictures will wind up in porno magazines. Have I made my point? In 1978 '*' was readily available, albeit on the 'top shelf' of every newsagents in the land so how could a shop like Gieger's hope to make a dirty buck. There are also pathetic attempts to explain why Marlowe, an American, is working as a private detective in England - he came over in the war and forgot to go back. Virtually everyone is miscast. John Mills as the character based on Marlowe's Bernie Ohls (Regis Toomey in the Bogie version)? I think not. Ohls was as cynical as Marlowe himself not a 'gentleman policeman' as Mills plays him. Candy Clark as the psychotic younger sister has all the sex appeal of a stale courgette and only a bigger psychotic would be interested in seeing her naked. Equally laughable is Edward Fox as Joe Brodie. Brodie was a cheap grifter not the kind of Englishman who drives around the shires in flat cap, blazer, flannels and silk kerchief and can be found any Suday lunchtime in the Dog and Duck, Berkshire nursing a half of bitter. More? Sorry, it was bad enough watching this drek so don't ask me to write about it as well. Minus ten stars.

Michael Winner, who claims as many of the credits (I use the word loosely) as he can for this celluloid abomination, is an intriguing phenomenon. He makes dreadful films, but presumably they earn enough at the box office to persuade yet another philistine, bean-counting producer to sign him up for another assault on sensitive eyes. As a sideline, the horrendously smug and obese Winner is a restaurant critic. Some of the less respectful publications in the UK hint that Winner is so loathed by chefs that every dish he is served contains a not so secret ingredient. How can I explain? The special stuff that is added in the kitchen to Winner's sauces and soups could otherwise have been deposited at the local branch of the Sperm Bank. Does Winner think he makes good films? How did he persuade Mitchum, Stewart, Reed et al to take part in this dire production? Do superannuated movie legends have no self-respect? Surely they don't need the money. Shame on them all for signing up with him. As a standalone film, this might earn 3 stars out of ten. As an unbelievably misconceived remake of a 1940s classic (despite all the loose ends of one of the most complicated and creakiest plots ever), I'm being too generous in awarding the IMDb minimum of one star.

While I haven't read the novel upon which 'The Big Sleep' is based, I have seen the Bogart version. I really love the original. Bogie-Bacall - what's not to love? However, that version does suffer from Hays Code puritanism that robbed the edge from much of human desires and sexual foibles that obviously suppressed some of the underlying desires and sexual motives. That's where the 1978 version excels - and fails. Let's start with the fails. In the original, the scenes in the bookshops near the beginning rule with Bogie's use of humour and the electric suggested tryst with Dorothy Malone's character. Sometimes the suggestion can be erotic enough. Perhaps that's why this version skips the fun and the implied sex for another more mundane approach. The other fail is the atmosphere. This version lacks any. The original's shadows and textures evoked each scene and created moods. This version lacks any specific mood to instead tell a story in almost a heightened reality. The direction does the same, relying on straight-ahead narrative more like a TV movie than a theatrical film. There's so much more here that succeeds. Despite his age, Mitchum is a fine Marlow, more cynical and world-weary than Bogart's version. The script is sharp, full of humour and wry observations. The biggest improvement is the depiction of sex. Freed of the tyranny of the forties' censorship, scenes like Carmen naked and stoned are much more realistic and make a more satisfying treatment, even if the innuendo is not as predominant. OK, it's not the classic it could've been. It's still a decent flick to rent or watch on cable. Marlowe is solid, Candy Clark is wonderfully loony, Joan Collins is pure kitsch, Richard Boone plays the essence of evil. It's good to see James Stewart, even if his gentle disposition doesn't quite match the demeanour of a General. The supporting cast are almost uniformly intriguing and fun to watch. And what a cast! The Big Sleep may be no masterpiece but it is great fun. Relax your expectations and enjoy it for what is - fine entertainment.

Admittedly, this remake can't compare to the original 1946 film starring Humphrey Bogart... but it has a value of it's own. The 1946 version of the film was very artfully scripted. It had to be, because two underlying themes of the plot (relating to homosexuality and *) couldn't be made explicit, in the original, owing to the sensibilities of the era. This led to the original film's only flaw: the plot's incomprehensibility, masked only by the brilliance of the direction and acting. By 1975, such social restrictions were gone, and the remake, set in England, instead of California, was able to be fully explicit, making the plot understandable for the first time. Robert Mitchum's subdued and smooth interpretation of Chandler's Phillip Marlowe was well suited to the script. I think this film is well worth watching, if for little other reason than a clear plot line and Mitchum's delightful under-acting of the lead role.

Raymond Chandler's plots can drive you crazy. The most admirable thing about Chandler's stories is his language ("hard boiled") and the way he uses it to evoke a Los Angeles of the 30s and 40s that is so infected with corruption that, like a ripe pustule, we expect it to pop momentarily. And that's what makes it so difficult to transfer his works to the screen. You almost have to have a voice-over from Philip Marlowe otherwise you not only get lost in the various plot twists but you miss the adamantly low-brow tropes -- "her hair was the color of gold in old paintings," or, "she threw me a glance I could feel in my hip pocket." "Chinatown," set in 1937 LA, was released to great critical and public acclaim in 1974. The very next year, Robert Mitchum tackled Philip Marlowe in "Farewell, My Lovely" and he was great, and so was the production, even if it was not the masterpiece that "Chinatown" was. Nobody will ever make a masterpiece out of a Chandler story because, after all, a masterpiece usually starts out with a coherent plot. So the trick is to capture on screen what Chandler's prose evokes on the written page. Style is everything. "Farewell My Lovely" had it. "The Big Sleep," alas, doesn't. The director hasn't really done much to help things. In the 1946 version of "The Big Sleep," Howard Hawks at least had some fun with the characters. (Bogart and the horn-rimmed glasses in the book shop.) Hawks also allowed some humor in the dialog. ("She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.") Philip Marlowe with his resolutely seedy presence belongs in the marginal zone of Los Angeles, not in the uptrodden neighborhoods of London. He belongs in a trench coat, wearing an older fedora, not in the powder blue suits of Saville Row. ("I own a hat and a coat and a gun," he tells Nulty in "Farewell My Lovely," "and everything I touch turns to s***.") In this film we have to put up with a confident and compassionate Marlowe, striding through the fancy decor instead of slouching, never touching a drop of alcohol. And Mitchum doesn't add much to the story besides his usual heft. As James Agee once said of him, his casual languor suggests Bing Crosby supersaturated on barbiturates. That reminds me. I couldn't help wondering, while I watched this, how much booze had gone into the production. I forget whether Chandler had quit drinking by the time he wrote this, but Mitchum himself was hardly an amateur. Olivier had kicked Cyril Cusack out of the Old Vic for showing up drunk for a performance of "Doctor's Dilemma" and reciting lines from another of Shaw's plays. Richard Boone was evidently immobilized during his last few years and Oliver Reed died of drink. Still, look at the actors in this thing. In support are Edward Fox, Harry Andrews, James Donald, Colin Blakely, James Stewart, and Richard Todd. And all of them are up to the task, true professionals, with not a hollow note struck. I'm tempted to call the cast "peerless" but I don't know if it's permitted if there's a theatrical knight among them. Richard Boone is outstanding as Canino -- a villainous wreck, hobbling about on a broken foot, cackling over his own sliminess, howling with unrestrained glee as he watches a harmless little man whom he has just poisoned crash through a glass door and die. Also notable are the locations and the art direction. It may not be sleazy Los Angeles in 1941 but London and its interiors look just fine. London has never looked less grimy. There is no rain or fog, the streets are clean, narrow and lined with classy book shops, and people tend to drive new and expensive cars. Well, the movie is done with dash and style, no doubt about that. But it's the wrong style. Marlowe belongs in the 1940s. In the 1940s * and dope could get you serious jail time -- just ask Mitchum. I didn't much care for it the first time I saw this. The second time was easier going because I'd lowered the bar of my expectation.

This remake of the Raymond Chandler novel is an object lesson in bad film-making. It should have been a contender - Robert Mitchum had been ideally cast as Philip Marlowe in 1975's Farewell, My Lovely and he is surrounded here by some high calibre talent. But British director Michael Winner so messes up the script, the direction and the mis-en-scene that the film is the very definition of poor. At times it looks as though someone has conned a load of old actors into performing in their home movie shoot. Perhaps this film is a joke on the cast, many of whom were old enough to be heading for "the big sleep" themselves and so were the butt of Winner's sick joke. Mitchum walks through the film without shaming himself too much (although he shouldn't run or fight at this age); some of the other actors give the worst performances of their career: James Stewart is beyond self-parody as the dying General; Sarah Miles lolls her tongue whilst sporting an afro perm (!), Richard Boon grimaces and growls to entirely comic effect and Candy Clark does the kind of acting one expects to see in an early John Waters film - a kind of mickey-take of acting - which is funny when Waters' cast does it deliberately but embarrassing when Clark (a promising actress previously) does it for supposedly serious effect here. A couple of the English actors, such as Richard Todd and John Mills, acquit themselves with dignity, although Edward Fox is hilariously bad in his scenes, plummy accent chewing words to pulp. Any film where Joan Collins gives one of the most convincing performances has got to be going wrong somewhere... Winner's script is a dog's dinner. He sets up the expectation that he's going to follow the convention whereby we only see and find out what Marlowe sees and finds out (a staple of detective films) and then adds random cutaways to events which Marlowe was not present at - e.g. the car going into the Thames - as well as plonking a lot of mismanaged flashbacks into the action every time anyone begins to talk about what has happened in the backstory. As usual with Winner, the film is cut with the finnesse of a village butcher, and setting the grimy noir in the posher areas of London and the English countryside does nothing to conjure the seamy world of the book. All in all, a pretty dismal addition to the list of Chandler adaptations, but worth seeing for the unintentional laughs (there are plenty) and as a lesson in how not to make a film, or what parts not to choose when you're an ageing actor.

This version of The Big Sleep is the classic reason why you don't remake a classic. Funny thing is that Robert Mitchum got deserved plaudits for what he did in remaking Farewell My Lovely a few years earlier. As Monk would say, here's the thing. A masterful job was done in keeping the story within it's 1940s milieu. Except for some things that couldn't be in the film because of the Code and the color photography, Farewell My Lovely could have been shot side by side with the Dick Powell Murder My Sweet. Raymond Chandler's noir world of the forties was recreated brilliantly. So who was the genius who thought to age Marlowe thirty years and bring him into the swinging seventies of London? Sherlock Holmes was brought to Washington, DC for a war time propaganda piece to the dismay of all Holmes purists. Chandler purists were similarly affronted here. Sad because a really great cast was wasted in this. One thing I'm sure the audience must have felt is how the American expatriate general played by James Stewart could have one English accented daughter in Sarah Miles and an American accented one in Candy Clark? I'm still scratching my head over that one. English gangster/gambler Oliver Reed employs an American hit man on retainer in Richard Boone. Another puzzle. It was nice however to see Robert Mitchum and James Stewart in the one and only film they made together. Stewart's only scenes in the film are with Mitchum and when the two Hollywood icons died in successive days in 1997 clips from The Big Sleep were running for a week. I don't need to give any plot details for those who've seen the fabulous Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall version. If you want to stargaze, watch this film, if you want to see some classic performances don't miss the Bogart one.

Warning: This review may contain spoilers. When Michael Winner decided to remake Howard Hawks's 1946 classic version of Raymond Chandler's mystery novel "The Big Sleep", he must have known that comparisons to the original film would materialize and that the majority of them would not be in favor of his 1978 screen retelling. The majority was correct. This 1978 version can't compare to the Hawks original(**** out of ****) in terms of style or entertainment value. That stated, this "Big Sleep" does make for worthwhile viewing after one has seen the original. While I haven't yet read the book I believe Chandler fans who say this version is more faithful to the original novel despite its updating from 1940s Los Angeles to 1970s London. This version benefits from writer/director Winner's tight screenplay that makes more sense than the earlier one penned by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. After screening it, so many things that baffled me after even multiple viewings of Hawks' version became clearer resulting in a more coherent and intellectually satisfying viewing experience. Therefore, I recommend this one after seeing the stylish original to help better understand Chandler's complex story. Other benefits include relatively handsome production values and a good cast: Robert Mitchum(in his 2nd performance as detective Philip Marlowe), James Stewart, Sarah Miles(who unfortunately sports a very unflattering Donna Summer-style hairdo but hey it was the late '70s), Richard Boone, Joan Collins, Oliver Reed, John Mills and Richard Todd. Contrary to the advertising on the current video release, Miss Collins doesn't play the female lead. That honor goes to Miss Miles who co-starred with Mr. Mitchum previously in David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter"(1970). Don't expect the same playful chemistry that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall shared in the original as the Marlowe/Vivian (or rather Charlotte as the elder Sternwood daughter character is named this time around) relationship is decidedly different. Warning: parents, pay attention to the R rating. Certain subject matter only hinted at in the 1946 version is portrayed much more graphically this time around. Definitely a film for adults only. Final rating: **1/2 out of ****.