The Big Sleep (1946)

Here begins my assault on my New Year resolutions – more golden age Hollywood. The BFI is hosting a mammoth retrospective of the career of Howard Hawks over January and February; a titanic figure in American film whose ease of transition from genre to genre, of effortlessly churning out one solid picture after another remains arguably unmatched since his death in 1977. Hawks was a true master whose career coincided with a turning point for the art-form, starting as writer and moving up to the directors chair just as the talkies were coming to fruition, his fifty year career spawning classic after classic with the likes of Red River and Rio Bravo nestling amongst the most influential Westerns, Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday ushering in the screwball comedy, from Scarface to The Thing From Another World, from Gentleman Prefer Blondes to Land of The Pharaohs (a personal favourite), he is one of the most versatile American masters of the twentieth century. Amongst the cineastes his popularity I’d wager is only matched by the likes of Billy Wilder or Hitchcock, or Ford and perhaps Nicholas Ray, like all those colleagues he was a massive influence on the French New Wave acolytes who repeatedly referenced and paid homage to his work throughout their own careers. As a massive film noir fan I naturally gravitated to seeing his criminal classic The Big Sleep, a new print of which is forming the centrepiece of the exhaustive retrospective, with screening runs programmed all over London and further afield around the UK throughout February and March.

The plot of The Big Sleep is notoriously convoluted so you’ll have to bear with me; in one of his truly iconic performances Humphrey Bogart is private detective Philip Marlowe, a world weary figure whose hang dog expression mirrors the depths of deceit and deception of his expository career. A wealthy new client by the name of General Sternwood, a widower who squats like a bloated spider in his family mansion offers Marlowe a job to absolve the gambling debts his slutty daughter Carmen has accrued with a shady extortionist by the name of Geiger – I use the word slutty here advisedly as that is quite simply the best way to describe her – Marlowe memorably describing her in one of the films numerous passages of scintillating dialogue as someone who ‘tried to sit on my lap when I was standing up’. Accepting the assignment Marlowe prepares to exit the mansion but is hijacked by Sternwood’s other daughter, the sleekly feline Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) a complication who claims that her father has other intentions and aspirations for Marlowe services whose real intent is to track down his missing friend Sean Regan, a drinking buddy and erstwhile companion of Carmen. After tracking down Geiger to his rare book boutique Marlowe shadows the miscreant to a remote Californian bungalow where the sounds of raised voices and crunching furniture are soon interrupted by the crack of pistol shots, rushing to the scene he spies a mysterious figure exiting the crime scene with a pursuer in tow, just as he breaks into the domicile to witness a giggling Carmen, wacked out of her mind on drugs, hovering over the dead body of Geiger. From there on out it gets increasingly perplexing….

Any responsible review of the movie has to highlight the two main attractions of this classic – the undisputed chemistry of Bogart and Bacall, a seduction invigorated by the sparkling dialogue of screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett* and Jules Furthman, all plucked from the authoritative source novel by Raymond Chandler. Bogie and Bacall were the Brad and Angelina of their times, a romance steeped in controversy due to the yearning age gap between the two – 26 years – and the fact that Bogie left his wife of seven years to shack up with a younger model, an infraction which of course could kill a career stone dead in that period. Bogart is just a natural on screen, he just dwells in that coarsely arrogant face and his delivery doesn’t suffer from that arch, mannered form of screen acting that were the criterion of the period, the performance affectations that the likes of Dean and Brando disintegrated in the Fifties. This being an era when Hollywood was still hamstrung by the Hays code in terms of its restrictions of impropriety the sulking wordsmiths presented some of the best allusions and innuendos to kindle that seething heat between the duo – just take a look at this which generated a few laughs.

The direction of Howard Hawks is unfussy and direct, his leaning to cover scenes in panning wide shots as figures move into apartment buildings, or smoke drenched bars, or down rain sodden streets before cutting to the usual two shots editing rhythm lets the dialogue breath and bewitch – in short like Marlowe he gets the job done directly and promptly, with little regard for redundant, rhetorical techniques. Hawks was a straight talking, direct and inspiring figure to his numerous casts and crew, frequently bringing his pictures in on time, and on budget, even when the perils of location shooting seemed destined to thwart his goals. One of my favourite anecdotes concerns that other Hollywood legend, producer Samuel Goldwyn whom exploded in fury when he received a telegram from Hawks whilst was down in Mexico shooting a picture – probably Viva Villa!! – where he suggested to the panjandrum that his next project be a romance movie. ’Romance??’ Goldwyn was said to have bellowed, ‘that man’s idea of romance is a fire in a whorehouse’….

What I really like about the film quite apart from the brilliant leads and compact direction is that complex, labyrinthine plot which was quite remarkable for its age – I struggled to keep up with it all during the screening last night. The legend goes that on set they were discussing the narrative with both Hawks and his screenwriters confessing that they weren’t sure exactly whom had done what to whom during the production, and even a telegram to Raymond Chandler to ask whether the chauffeur had been killed or committed suicide resulted in his confession that ‘he wasn’t sure’. Like the best of Chandler and the noir genre as a whole everyone has an angle, everyone’s working a hidden agenda and soon the crosses and double crosses are ricocheting around the movie like an epileptic pinball in a CERN centrifuge. Some noir purists complain that it’s not genuinely worthy of that label as the central character of Marlowe isn’t conflicted, he has no psychological burden or disability that drives the plot and the film doesn’t necessarily display the supposedly essential low-key chiaroscuro lighting that such a pigeonhole demands. It’s a nonsense argument as the film does have a signature lighting style, even if it is not as manifest as the likes of The Big Combo or Double Indemnity, besides which it has two maybe three femme fatale figures and the entire dramatis personae are a litany of duplicitous, criminal sorts who’d sell their own grandmother for a whiff of some dead presidents. It’s also always a joy to see one of my favourite ‘you know, that guy’ in the movie, in this case the wonderfully dilapidated Elisha Cook Jr. who as usual suffers a cruelly ignoble fate. To enter clichéd waters they quite honestly don’t make ‘em like this any more, The Big Sleep is a high point of the crime genre that purloined expectations of thrills and spills in favour of enigmatic romance, essential for all trench coated apostles everywhere.

*Leigh Brackett performed an uncredited pass on The Empire Strikes Back script fact fans, another presumed reason for the successful romantic aura between Han and Leia. You’re welcome.