SNMR 4.1: The Big Sleep

Tonight's SNMR feature is "The Big Sleep" (1946, NR, 116 minutes, B&W), starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone and Peggy Knudsen. The film was directed by Howard Hawks.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS FILM:
What is not to like? For starters, Humphrey Bogart is a stud. He has a woman fall into his arms within the first three minutes of the first scene. The chemistry between Bogart and Bacall is hot from the beginning, parallelling their real life, off screen relationship. The script is well written, flows well and had lots of witty dialogue. The story is complex, the action is subdued and subtle. The film is directed masterfully.

WHAT I DISLIKED ABOUT THIS FILM:
Nothing, really. This film is a classic and a standard of the murder mystery genre.


From the DVD's dust case:

L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) takes on a blackmail case... and follows a trail peopled with murderers, pornographers, nightclub rogues, the spoiled rich and more. But Raymond Chandler's legendary gumshoe solves it in hard-boiled style - and style is what The Big Sleep is all about. Director Howard Hawks serves up snappy character encounters (particularly those of Bogart and Lauren Bacall), brisk pace and atmosphere galore. This DVD doubles your pleasure, offering two versions of this whodunit supreme: the familiar 1946 theatrical version [side A] full of re shot scenes of incendiary Bogart/Bacall chemistry, and the less-familiar 1945 prerelease version [side B], which recently resurfaced and whose plot and resolution are more linear in fashion.

***** out of *****