Gary Grant, who could combine in his role a strong physical presence with comedy-talents, become one of Hawk's favorite actors. The film followed Chandler's plot fairly closely until the book's last chapter, then suddenly opts for a different killer. Hawks combined realism with tough, sardonic dialogue, complex characters and multiple layers of meaning. He went into production with the temporary script, shoot a lot of materrial ad lib which ran an already long screenplay into far too much footage. Jules Furthman was called in for a rewrite to cut the remaining or unshot portion into a manageable lenght.
Most producers breathe constantly down a writer's neck.
Howard Hawks sits down with you for a series of chats, giving you all his thoughts on what kind of story he wants, how it ought to go, etc., and then retires to Palm Springs and the golf course, leaving you to come up with a script the best way you can. He has always been quite free of the kind of ambitions or pretensions that most often bring directors into conflict with the commercial interests of production companies. The significance of his films never arises from the conscious treatment of a Subject. Hawks's pictures display a remarkable organic quality, typified by their spare, well-oiled dialogue. His raw materials were not only the story and the characters, but also the players.