The Big Sleep

Plot synopsis:
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of the wealthy and elderly General Sternwood, in the month of October. He wants Marlowe to deal with an attempt by a bookseller named Arthur Geiger to blackmail his wild young daughter, Carmen. She had previously been blackmailed by a man named Joe Brody. Sternwood mentions his other, older daughter Vivian is in a loveless marriage with a man named Rusty Regan, who has disappeared. On Marlowe's way out, Vivian wonders if he was hired to find Regan, but Marlowe will not say.
Marlowe investigates Geiger's bookstore and meets Agnes, the clerk. He determines the store is a pornography lending library. He follows Geiger home, stakes out his house, and sees Carmen Sternwood enter. Later, he hears a scream followed by gunshots and two cars speeding away. He rushes in to find Geiger dead and Carmen drugged and naked, in front of an empty camera. He takes her home but when he returns, Geiger's body is gone. He quickly leaves. The next day, the police call him and let him know the Sternwoods' car was found driven off a pier, with their chauffeur dead inside. It appears that he was hit on the head before the car entered the water. The police also ask if Marlowe is looking for Regan.
Marlowe stakes out the bookstore and sees its inventory being moved to Joe Brody's home. Vivian comes to his office and says Carmen is being blackmailed with the nude photos from the previous night. She also mentions gambling at the casino of Eddie Mars and volunteers that Eddie's wife, Mona, ran off with Rusty. Marlowe revisits Geiger's house and finds Carmen trying to get in. They look for the photos, but she plays dumb about the night before. Eddie Mars suddenly enters; he says he is Geiger's landlord and is looking for him. Mars demands to know why Marlowe is there; Marlowe takes no notice and states he is no threat to Mars.
Marlowe goes to Brody's home and finds him with Agnes, the bookstore clerk. He tells them he knows they are taking over the lending library and blackmailing Carmen with the nude photos. Carmen forces her way in with a gun and demands the photos, but Marlowe takes her gun and makes her leave. Marlowe interrogates Brody further and pieces together the story: Geiger was blackmailing Carmen; the family driver, Owen Taylor, didn't like it, so he sneaked in and killed Geiger, then took the film of Carmen. Brody was staking out the house too and pursued the driver, knocked him out, stole the film, and possibly pushed the car off the pier. Suddenly the doorbell rings and Brody is shot dead; Marlowe gives chase and catches Geiger's male lover, who shot Brody thinking he killed Geiger. He had also hidden Geiger's body, so he could remove his own belongings before the police got wind of the murder.
The case is over, but Marlowe is nagged by Regan's disappearance. The police accept that he simply ran off with Mona Mars, since she is also missing, and since Eddie Mars wouldn't risk committing a murder in which he would be the obvious suspect. Mars calls Marlowe to his casino and seems to be nonchalant about everything. Vivian is also there, and Marlowe senses something between her and Mars. He drives her home and she tries to seduce him, but he rejects her advances. When he gets home, he finds Carmen has sneaked into his bed, and he rejects her, too.
A man named Harry Jones, who is Agnes's new partner, approaches Marlowe and offers to sell him the location of Mona Mars. Marlowe plans to meet him later, but Mars's henchman Canino is suspicious of Jones and Agnes's intentions and kills Jones first. Marlowe manages to meet Agnes anyway and receives the information. He goes to the location in Realito, a repair shop with a home in back, but Canino, with the help of Art Huck, the garage man, jumps him and knocks him out. When he awakens, he is tied up, and Mona Mars is there with him. She says she hasn't seen Rusty in months; she only hid out to help Eddie and insists he didn't kill Rusty. She frees him, and he shoots and kills Canino.
The next day, Marlowe visits General Sternwood, who remains curious about Rusty's whereabouts. On the way out, Marlowe returns Carmen's gun to her, and she asks him to teach her how to shoot. They go to an abandoned field, where she tries to kill him, but he has loaded the gun with blanks and merely laughs at her; the shock causes Carmen to have an epileptic seizure. Marlowe brings her back and tells Vivian he has guessed the truth: Carmen came on to Rusty and he spurned her, so she killed him. Eddie Mars, who had been backing Geiger, helped Vivian conceal it by first helping to dispose of Rusty's body, inventing a story about his wife running off with Rusty and then blackmailing her himself. Vivian says she did it to keep it all from her father so he wouldn't despise his own daughters, and promises to have Carmen institutionalized.
With the case now over, Marlowe goes to a local bar and orders several double Scotches. While drinking, he begins to think about Mona "Silver-Wig" Mars. He never sees her again.

Tags: revenge, neo noir, murder, romantic

Review:
The first movie version, while justly famed for the chemistry between Bogie and Bacall, really didn't come close to doing justice to Raymond Chandler's original novel.
The nudity, the drugs, the pornography, the homosexuality were all a little too strong for a mainstream movie of that time.In addition, Chandler's convoluted plot (originally derived from two or three separate short stories) didn't offer an easy screen translation, even before all the "juicy parts" were excised.So this must have seemed like a great idea.
Robert Mitchum had successfully played Philip Marlowe a few years earlier in "Farewell, My Lovely", and the MPAA ratings system meant that they could be as explicit as they wanted; the filmmakers could be more faithful to Chandler's novel *and* show us Candy Clark nude!
This makes me suspect that the earlier story was more deftly tailored to Mitchum's age and acting style, with lots of references to how old and tired Marlowe feels.
It made an interesting, coincidental "bridge" between the classic films noir and more recent movies about London gangs like "Snatch".But the deepest problem with this film is that while it follows the externals of Chandler's novel much more closely in terms of the plot and (most of) the dialogue, it fails utterly to capture the real heart and soul of the novel.
By contrast, in the Mitchum film, scene after scene features lines taken verbatim from the novel, but for some reason, they chose to leave out some of the best: "How do you like your brandy, sir?" "Any way at all." or the all-time classic, "A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy".
A three for a quarter grifter wouldn't even think such thoughts, much less know how to express them."The filmmakers may have closely followed the plot of the original novel in this version, but the fact that they could leave out writing like this, while clinging almost religiously to most of the rest of the book, shows that they couldn't have been more clueless about the real "core" of Chandler's writing.
Both Philip Marlowe and General Sternwood are American expatriates living in London rather than Englishmen, and they are played by two of Hollywood's biggest stars, Robert Mitchum and James Stewart.
To the purist Bogart fan there can be no substitute for the original, but to anyone else Robert Mitchum, himself a fine exponent of the film noir style during the early part of his career in the forties and fifties, seems like the best possible replacement.
There are also good performances from Stewart in the cameo role of Sternwood, from Oliver Reed and from Joan Collins.As a whole, however, the film does not live up to the standard of the original.
With the exception of Joan Collins (who could do sultry but sinister glamour in spades, even in her mid-forties), none of the female characters has the required touch of the femme fatale about her.As a London-based crime thriller, Winner's 'The Big Sleep' is not a bad film; it is better than most of its director's other thrillers and better than a lot of other British films from the seventies.
As a literary adaptation, this version, however, is much better.First of all, the plot stays true to the novel, whereas the older version had a plot ruined by the restrictions of the Hayes code, so that it contains numerous loose ends and unexplained developments.Secondly, Robert Mitchum impersonates Marlowe much better that Humphrey Bogart.
Mitchum plays this character with great understatement, as it should be done, while Bogart makes Marlowe just another hard-boiled detective, which could be replaced by any other one.Finally, both Sarah Miles and Candy Clark (while not being necessarily great actresses) bring over the lunacy of the Sternwood daughters beautifully.
Granted, that the secrets get darker, but the point is that so much is diluted.) Mitchum is a very, very fine actor, and when he was, say, 30 to 40 years old he would have been a good choice to play Marlowe; but an important aspect of Marlowe is exactly that he is so weary of spirit while still a relatively young man; we expect the old to feel old.
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.
What he gives us is a standard yet below par mystery film that has little connection with the character Robert Mitchum so memorably played three years earlier in "Farewell, My Lovely." Unlike Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye," wherein Marlowe was portrayed as an anachronism in contemporary society, Winner's updates reflect nothing but his ignorance of and/or boredom with the material.
Most people would probably run a mile at the thought of Michael Winner getting his hands on the rights to film Raymond Chandler's masterpiece novel 'The Big Sleep'; but personally, I was rather excited at the prospect.
Michael Winner may not be a great director; but his films generally turn out to be entertaining in spite of not being brilliant, and with a story as strong as this one; I felt confident that The Big Sleep would be a good film.
Among the names in the cast list are Oliver Reed, John Mills, Joan Collins, Richard Boone and Edward Fox. The film is lead by Robert Mitchum, who while not as great as Humphrey Bogart, still makes an excellent leading man and there's also enough room in the cast for an aging James Stewart.
Shop-worn, hard-bitten but with a kindly and chivalrous streak within; aging but still very vital and with a solid 'authority'(for want of a better term) in the role, Mitchum made as perfect a Philip Marlowe as has ever graced the screen - in 'Farewell My Lovely'.Unfortunately, in this film he probably won't impress you in this way but that is not his fault; it's the screenwriter's.
The gritty world in which Marlowe lives is not a very good fit for the English countryside and the locales and characters lack the film-noir geist that Chandler's world evokes: the crazy mixture of glitz and sleaze, glamour and grittiness that was post-prohibition Los Angeles.Nonetheless, this film has a number of redeeming qualities; the acting is quite good, the plot adheres to Chandler's story much more closely than the Bogart/Bacall version and the scenes, cinematography and direction are competent and entertaining..
"The Big Sleep" '78 is not so much a remake of the earlier Howard Hawks favorite as a more faithful reading of the Raymond Chandler novel, albeit transposed by screenwriter / director Michael Winner ("Death Wish") to modern day London.
A very appealing Robert Mitchum reprises the role of private eye Philip Marlowe (after his portrayal in "Farewell, My Lovely" in 1975), hired by dying American military man General Sternwood (James Stewart, who makes the most of two brief scenes).
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?
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 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..
***SPOILERS*** Re-made Raymond Chandler film-noir classic that just doesn't have the drama and suspense of the original Bogart/Bacall 1946 film that in some ways was even more confusing then the less effective 1978 remake.
We have in this version of "The Big Sleep" Robert Mitchum as the not so usual down on his luck, barley keeping up with paying the rent for his shabby office, private detective Philip Marlow.
Marlow drives around in a $50,000.00 car checking the time on his $5,000.00 Rollex watch and wearing clothes personally tailored and cut to size never getting dirty torn or even creased no matter how many beatings he take throughout the movie!This time around Philip Marlow is working his trade, as a PI, in the green rolling countryside of the 1970's jolly old England not the dark dirty and gritty streets of 1940's L.A. Coming to see his latest client sick and disabled millionaire General Sternwood, James Stewart, Marlow is told that he's being blackmailed by this local bookstore owner Arthur Geiger, John Justin.
Geiger has a number of nude photos of General Sternwood's wacky's younger daughter Camilla, Candy Clark, and is threatening to make them public if the General doesn't pay him 10,000 Pound Sterling.We, and Philip Marlow, see right away that Camilla is a bit off her rocker but what we don't realize is that General Sternwood is really interested in finding her missing husband Rusty Regan, David Seville, whom he seems to have become very found of in his stories about himself and his exploits as an Irish patriot.
Besides Camilla there's also the Generals slightly nymphomaniac older daughter Charlotte, Sara Miles, who like the younger Carmilla is always making a play for the much older, and not at all interested, Philip Marlow that's keeping him from doing his job.Marlow tries to track down Geiger and finds him in his house, with a naked and goofy Carmilla, shot dead between the eyes.
It's later that Taylor is himself killed and, together with his car, thrown into the nearby river by an associate of Geiger Joe Brody, Edward Fox. Fox murdered Taylor in order to steal Geiger's film that Taylor had on him but at the same time not knowing that Geiger was already dead.The story leads into a number of different directions that has to do with a local British mobster Eddie Mars, Oliver Reed, and his club-footed and sadistic hit-man known as the Brown Man Lush Canino, Richard Boone, and members of London's sleazy and dangerous Red Light district that includes some of the late Arthur Geiger's gay lovers.
Yet, he has had the good fortune to work with some charismatic actors--Charles Bronson and Robert Mitchum come to mind.Mitchum is the only thing worth watching in Winner's hackneyed remake of The Big Sleep, a way too mod updating of the classic Bogart/Marlowe flick from the forties.
After years of slowly perverting the hard-boiled 40s purity of Chandler's creation with movies like Marlowe and The Long Goodbye that put Marlowe increasingly at odds with the modern times, the series went back to its 1940s roots in 1974 with Farewell My Lovely and introduced Mitchum as Marlowe, perfectly cast in all of his lantern-jawed, world weariness.
The script still crackles with remnants of Chandler's tough guy talk and Mitchum is still good as Marlowe, world-weary as all get out, yet willing to pitch in to help a dame, but the rest of it works less well and the lack of a noir visual aesthetic makes it all less interesting to watch, too.
If you liked Ryan's Daughter, you have to rent The Big Sleep, which reunites Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, and John Mills!
I like Robert Mitchum's previous appearance as Raymond Chandler's legendary private detective Philip Marlowe in 'Farewell, My Lovely' despite him being at least twenty years too late to do the role justice.
Bogart and Bacall's scenes together in Howard Hawks' original version really made that movie something special, and this 'The Big Sleep' doesn't even come CLOSE to recapturing that.
Mitchum is a good actor and does the role justice, and the English setting, although not good for puritan Raymond Chandler fans, isn't bad either.But, despite star-studded cast (James Stewart was a nice addition) this movie is boring.
It seems the director tried to be true to old-style Film Noir than Chandler, as so loses much of it's tongue-in-cheeck innuendos and pace.This movie was a big mistake..
Largely due to a great script (he adheres closely to the book despite the film being set in England) and the superb acting of Robert Mitchum.
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.
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.
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.
And any film with a cast that includes the likes of Robert Mitchum, James Stewart, Oliver Reed, Richard Boone, Sarah Miles, Edward Fox, Joan Collins, John Mills, Richard Todd and Harry Andrews carries the inevitable curiosity value associated with seeing so many stellar names in one flick.American private eye living in England, Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum), is hired by a wheelchair bound old man, General Sternwood (James Stewart), to solve a blackmail problem.
Had it not been transported to contemporary London, instead of to 1940's Los Angeles of Raymond Chandler's pen; it would have been a much better,interesting and more entertaining a movie.AS EVIDENCE OF what we are driving at, just take a gander at the previous Phillip Marlowe outing in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (ITC/????/Avco Embassy, 1975) as proof.AND JUST WHY was such a change of venue or setting implemented as cornerstone of this filming of THE BIG SLEEP?
The only possible way of enjoying this version of Raymond Chandler's famed detective story is to avoid seeing the 1946 Howard Hawks production with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall or, if you have already seen it, to ignore that predecessor as much as possible.
But despite an interesting approach by the director and a fine performance from Robert Mitchum, the 1978 'Sleep' proves no better at avoiding the confusion of Chandler's novel.
While watching this film on DVD, however, I can imagine its theater audiences (without the help of a rewind button) becoming lost in the final 40 minutes, when Philip Marlowe makes his way through an overlapping and bewildering series of events.Robert Mitchum, who reprises his Marlowe role from 1975's 'Farewell, My Lovely,' is here an American investigator who opened shop in London after the Second World War. He is contacted by retired General Sternwood (James Stewart) of the U.S. Army, who has settled on an English manor with his two wild daughters, heavy gambler Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and nymphomaniac Camilla (Candy Clark).
Michael Winner, who wrote, directed, and co-produced this film, tries to keep things simple with the hope of Chandler's plot being easier to follow.
At least in my opinion, 'The Big Sleep' reaches such complexity and tries so severely to jam this information into 102 minutes that its entertainment value is greatly reduced.Robert Mitchum is completely at ease in his role as Marlowe and gives a charismatic performance, but there is limited material for the supporting cast to work with.
James Stewart offers little emotion in his role as General Sternwood; Sarah Miles gives a strong effort as the femme fatale who uses looks to (sometimes) get her way, but Candy Clark is made to look like a complete ditz rather than an emotionally unstable woman.
Aging and cynical private eye Philip Marlowe (superbly played with world-weary grace by Robert Mitchum) gets hired by the frail and crippled General Sternwood (a moving performance by Jimmy Stewart) to investigate a blackmail scheme that proves to be much more complicated than it initially seems to be.Writer/director Michael Winner relates the intricate and involving story at a steady pace, maintains an appropriately seamy tone throughout (such risqué subject matter as porn and homosexuality gets depicted with unwavering explicitness), stages the action set pieces with aplomb, treats the material in a respectful manner without ever resorting to either condescending kitsch or sentimental nostalgia, and makes neat use of the London locations.
Big Sleep, The (1978) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is asked by General Sternwood (James Stewart) to track down a blackmailer who is using his daughters (Sarah Miles, Candy Clark) but after the blackmailer is found murdered the private detective finds a whole string of people who seem to be keeping one secret after another.
THE BIG SLEEP certainly doesn't come close to the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall film but at the same time it's somewhat unfair to judge the two especially when you consider that this version was a lot closer to the original novel and features stuff that couldn't even be hinted at in the 1947 version.
I will admit that the story here is much better than the original movie as Marlowe and Mitchum seem perfectly well suited for the material.
Nonetheless, this version is not only an interesting movie in its own right, but actually seems far more faithful to both the plot and mood of the Chandler novel.Admittedly, Mitchum is no Bogart, but is more the imperturbable, world-weary, snappy Marlowe that readers love, while Sarah Miles, Candy Clark and James Stewart are so close to the characters in the book as to make comparisons with Bacall and company irrelevant.