The Big Sleep
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Movie Reviews of The Big Sleep
Movie Review: Best Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
This item arrived quickly and in good condition. This is the best movie ever.Movie Review: Classic Noir
Summary: 5 Stars
Bogart and Bacall make for a scorching Film Noir mystery. Classic cinema Gold.Movie Review: Rather light DVD for one of the greatest private-eye mysteries
Summary: 4 Stars
Don't be fooled by the DVD cover: This IS a private-eye noir, complete with a tangled web of murder and mystery. The cover art only shows Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in each other's arms, with their names taking up most of the cover, but this isn't some sappy romance. It's an all-time classic noir.
Bogart plays private investigator Philip Marlowe in this film based on Raymond Chandler's novel. The crime plot is complicated, but the movie is a lot of fun, nonetheless. Bogart is terrific in the cynical detective role, with his quick wit and fedora. Lauren Bacall plays the romantic interest in her second of four films with Bogart. (The two were later married.)
The DVD is fine, but nothing fancy. It's a double-sided disc that comes in an eco-case (with the "recycle" symbol cut out of the plastic). The disc includes two versions of the film. On one side is the first version (the "pre-release version"), which was screened for the military during WWII. On the other side is the more familiar theatrical version, which includes alternate scenes reshot after the first version was screened. The big differences are Bogart's scenes with Bacall, which were reshot to dial up the sexual chemistry between the two. The theatrical version is the best version to see.
Also included on the disc are a behind-the-scenes text feature, the theatrical trailer, and an interesting video explaining the differences between the 1945 pre-release version and the 1946 theatrical version.
Sometime in the future I'd like to see a special edition DVD with maybe an audio commentary, interviews, and some making-of featurettes, but right now this rather light DVD is the best there is. THE BIG SLEEP is certainly a great movie (if you're into film noir, mysteries, 1940s classics, or Humphrey Bogart), and the DVD is pretty good. Especially if you can get it for a great price. Amazon offered the DVD for quite a bargain (five bucks), so I snapped it up. Well worth it.
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If you're interested in THE BIG SLEEP, you might also enjoy:
The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Bogart's 1941 mystery classic as private eye Sam Spade
Casablanca (1942) - Bogart and Ingrid Bergman amid WWII tensions in Morocco
To Have and Have Not (1944) - Bogart and Bacall's first film together
Out of the Past (1947) - another convoluted film noir, with Robert Mitchum as the detective
Murder, My Sweet (1944) - Dick Powell plays Philip Marlowe (a little different from Bogart's take)
The Cheap Detective (1978) - comedy spoof of Bogart detective films, starring Peter Falk
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) - Steve Martin detective comedy featuring clips from a number of classic noir films
Movie Review: You won't be sleeping through this one...
Summary: 4 Stars
After diving into the whole `gangster' genre of the 30's and 40's, I found myself in dire need of a film noir. I love the whole concept behind this celebrated genre. It completely absorbs me.
Now, as much as I love this genre, even I will admit that there are many gems within it's vortex that I have yet to see. One of those films, until last night, was `The Big Sleep'. I will say that I was very excited about settling in to watch this film, for it just had the look and feel of something I would gush all over. In fact, the opening credits made me giddy with excitement. I may not be the biggest Bogart fan in the world, and I may not be that familiar with Lauren Bacall's resume, but when their names flashed across the screen with that backdrop of their silhouettes, I was sold.
`The Big Sleep' is certainly and engrossing and exciting film, and it is chuck full of great performances, but the overall complexity of the plot (lord, this film can get confusing) and the overall letdown of the `reveal' leaves me a little hesitant to label this a `great' movie. It is a very good one, and one I would recommend without any hesitations, but it just doesn't completely deliver in a way I expected it to.
The film revolves around a private detective named Philip Marlowe, who is hired by an elderly (and wealthy) man to uncover the man responsible for black mailing him. You see, this man has two daughters who seem to be nothing but trouble, and his youngest is mixed up in something pretty shady. Marlowe takes the case, but his new employer's eldest daughter has a few plans of her own, and wishes to use Marlowe to her own gain. When bodies start dropping and people start missing, Marlowe realizes that this case is not one `easily' solved.
Not easy is right.
There are a lot of characters that are introduced rather suddenly only to pop up again later, long after we've forgotten who they were. It can make keeping the story straight pretty difficult, and the overall amount of plot twists on twists on twists can be overwhelming. This is not a breezy watch. You really need to PAY ATTENTION, and good.
While I wasn't all that impressed with the films actual reveal, I found the performances sold it for me in ways I wasn't expecting. Bogart is witty and charming, all the while maintaining a repressed `coolness' that makes his character dangerous and enticing. Lauren Bacall is just flawless here. I love dangerous women, and she nails that for me here, giving Bogart a run for his money. She drips with sensual enticement, but she also wears that veil of aggressive mystery very close. Martha Vickers is also a standout, playing coy and seductive in a way that reminded me very much of Drew Barrymore, you know, back in the early 90's.
While it isn't perfect, `The Big Sleep' has more than enough going for it to validate it's cult status and command your attention.
I'll certainly be watching it again.
Movie Review: This was the film in which Bogart became Marlowe for all time...
Summary: 4 Stars
Frequently compared with Huston's "The Maltese Falcon" as one of the classics of the private eye genre, "The Big Sleep" is, in many ways, far removed from the former film... Where on the contrary "The Maltese Falcon" has a basically simple plot about the hunt for a priceless statuette, "The Big Sleep" has probably the most complicated story ever filmed... And, more important, where Hammett's Sam Spade was uncompromising, mercenary and a winner, Raymond Chandlers Philip Marlowe was a frequent sufferer at the hands of cops and hoods and in many ways a loser...
"The Big Sleep" almost defies plot analysis... Just about the only part of the film that is straightforward is the opening sequence when Marlowe undertakes a job of investigation for a crippled millionaire whose daughter is being blackmailed... Afterwards it fills up with such a vast assortment of shadowy characters - whores, pimps, killers, gamblers, a dope hooked deb who sucks her thumb - it is almost impossible to follow... Nevertheless let me mention that Bogart was hired ostensibly to track down a blackmailer, but quickly finds himself immersed in murder, and harmonized double-crosses...
The film has speed, efficiency and magnificent craftsmanship, it has wit... and the acting, needless to say, is of the quality one expects from a Warner's movie of the Forties... Bogart witnesses Bob Steele smilingly giving Elisha Cook, Jr., a poisoned glass of water, all the while assuring him that he has nothing to fear; and Bogart's coldly calculated shootout with Steele later in the film... Bacall moves stealthily in fear or shame, Martha Vickers expresses displeasure, resentment, and bad humor, chief heavy John Ridgeley shows anger and Elisha Cook Jr. is furtive...
If the magic, whether it was entirely calculated in advance or not, lies in the absolute congruence of the Marlowe character with Bogart's screen personality, it nevertheless was an important contribution to the Bogart mystique and is usually paired with "The Maltese Falcon" when reissued...
This was the film in which Bogart became Marlowe for all time... It was the only time he played Marlowe, but it stuck... Bogart as Marlowe is a rock of logic in a carousel of shady characters with clear psychological motivations for only partially explained actions...
When it first appeared, "The Big Sleep" was attacked in some quarters for violence and amorality--but beneath its cynicism and toughness there breathed a heart and sentimentality which he1p to make it timeless...