If someone asked me to summarize the plot of, say, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," I could probably do it easily enough. "Three men go gold prospecting and one of them goes nuts." But Raymond Chandler's plots, of which this is one, defy facile description, let alone analysis.
I understand that William Faulkner is given lead credit for the writing but I can't imagine he had very much to do with it. Faulkner wasn't sober all that often -- "Old corn-drinking mellifluous", Hemingway called him -- and description, not dialog, was Faulkner's forte anyway.
Anyhow I'm not going to bother much with the plot. Half-way through, Humphrey Bogart, as Chandler's private detective, Philip Marlowe, appears to have satisfactorily wrapped up the case assigned to him by General Sternwood. The misbehaviors, legal and otherwise, seem to have been explained to the General and Bogart has been paid off. But Bogart decides to poke around further, on his own, largely because he's fallen in love with Sternwood's daughter, Lauren Bacall, and she with him. If someone can provide a logical link between Bogart's love for Bacall and Bogart's decision to kibbitz in events of no consequence to either of the two, I'd be grateful.
Here's what Bogart tells Bacall in his office. "You're trying to find out what your father hired me to find out and I'm trying to find out why you're trying to find out." Amen.
And -- let me ramble for a moment -- what in the name of all creatures is Geiger the crooked book dealer up to? "Blackmail," somehow involving photographs of Sternwood's naughtier daughter, Carmen, the one who tries to sit in Bogart's lap while he's standing up. In Chandler's novel at least Marlowe manages to get hold of one of Geiger's books. "It was filth," says Marlowe -- meaning pornography. Okay. That at least tells us what kind of illegal enterprise Geiger was involved in. Simply OWNING a copy of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" could wind you up in jail, never mind SELLING it. The "blackmailing" business is a poor substitute because it raises additional questions the movie doesn't answer. Who was being blackmailed for what? There are too many other discrepancies between the novel and the film to bother with. And Raymond Chandler and William Faulkner are no more than popular pegs for the real author -- Howard Hawks -- to hang the story on. Bogart is nearly perfect as Philip Marlowe, just as he was nearly perfect as Dashiel Hammett's Sam Spade in the earlier "The Maltese Falcon." Bogart and Hawks had made one previous film together but this was their last. Hawks didn't like Bogart's horning in on his supernally beautiful new find, Lauren Bacall, and sneaking off for mid-afternoon, umm, assignations.
What one remembers from "The Big Sleep" is not the story but the characters and the exchanges between them. "The Maltese Falcon" at least had the search for the black bird to hold it together. This movie has nothing of the sort. Instead, we remember Bogart imitating an androgynous book collector, a scene that was improvised on the spot, as many of Hawks' memorable moments were. The movie has a kind of slapdash quality to it that keeps it from becoming more than an entertainment. Yet -- entertaining it is. It's filled with little quirky gestures, mannerisms, and apothegms. Hawks has Bogart pulling his ear while he's thinking. And it's a wonder that some of the banter between Bogart and Bacall sneaked past the censors.
I understand that William Faulkner is given lead credit for the writing but I can't imagine he had very much to do with it. Faulkner wasn't sober all that often -- "Old corn-drinking mellifluous", Hemingway called him -- and description, not dialog, was Faulkner's forte anyway.
Anyhow I'm not going to bother much with the plot. Half-way through, Humphrey Bogart, as Chandler's private detective, Philip Marlowe, appears to have satisfactorily wrapped up the case assigned to him by General Sternwood. The misbehaviors, legal and otherwise, seem to have been explained to the General and Bogart has been paid off. But Bogart decides to poke around further, on his own, largely because he's fallen in love with Sternwood's daughter, Lauren Bacall, and she with him. If someone can provide a logical link between Bogart's love for Bacall and Bogart's decision to kibbitz in events of no consequence to either of the two, I'd be grateful.
Here's what Bogart tells Bacall in his office. "You're trying to find out what your father hired me to find out and I'm trying to find out why you're trying to find out." Amen.
And -- let me ramble for a moment -- what in the name of all creatures is Geiger the crooked book dealer up to? "Blackmail," somehow involving photographs of Sternwood's naughtier daughter, Carmen, the one who tries to sit in Bogart's lap while he's standing up. In Chandler's novel at least Marlowe manages to get hold of one of Geiger's books. "It was filth," says Marlowe -- meaning pornography. Okay. That at least tells us what kind of illegal enterprise Geiger was involved in. Simply OWNING a copy of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" could wind you up in jail, never mind SELLING it. The "blackmailing" business is a poor substitute because it raises additional questions the movie doesn't answer. Who was being blackmailed for what? There are too many other discrepancies between the novel and the film to bother with. And Raymond Chandler and William Faulkner are no more than popular pegs for the real author -- Howard Hawks -- to hang the story on. Bogart is nearly perfect as Philip Marlowe, just as he was nearly perfect as Dashiel Hammett's Sam Spade in the earlier "The Maltese Falcon." Bogart and Hawks had made one previous film together but this was their last. Hawks didn't like Bogart's horning in on his supernally beautiful new find, Lauren Bacall, and sneaking off for mid-afternoon, umm, assignations.
What one remembers from "The Big Sleep" is not the story but the characters and the exchanges between them. "The Maltese Falcon" at least had the search for the black bird to hold it together. This movie has nothing of the sort. Instead, we remember Bogart imitating an androgynous book collector, a scene that was improvised on the spot, as many of Hawks' memorable moments were. The movie has a kind of slapdash quality to it that keeps it from becoming more than an entertainment. Yet -- entertaining it is. It's filled with little quirky gestures, mannerisms, and apothegms. Hawks has Bogart pulling his ear while he's thinking. And it's a wonder that some of the banter between Bogart and Bacall sneaked past the censors.