The Big Sleep was made in 1946 .
`` The opening scene of Eddie Mannix surveilling a starlet�s late night photo session echoes a key action scene in the famous film noir The Big Sleep , and the scene with Hobie Doyle flubbing his dialogue closely parallels the pivotal scene in the 1937 comedy It Happened in Hollywood , when a cowboy film star struggles with elegant dialogue after being unexpectedly assigned to a period costume drama at the start of the `` '' talkies '' '' period . ''
Hail, Caesar!