Decent, but not nearly in the league of The Maltese Falcon.
The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)
Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's classic novel by no less a personage than William Faulkner himself, seems to be considered by many to be the be-all and end-all of Raymond Chandler flicks. Not so me; as good as this movie is, there's always Double Indemnity lurking in the wings where I'm concerned. I realize this has far less to do with Hawks than it does with studio execs, who mandated a mangling of the flick and forced the addition of some Bogey-and-Bacall flirtation that doesn't exist in the book (and stands out like a sore thumb here, especially when you know it was shot a year later, in a misguided effort to save Lauren Bacall's career from a couple of bad reviews on her previous film). It's good, but it's certainly not what it could have been-- and, in all probability, was upon its original release. Hopefully we'll see the original film restored at one point, but until then, we'll have to make do with this.
Bogey, of course, plays Philip Marlowe, who is hired by General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to keep his daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) in check. Carmen has fallen in with a bad crowd, and Marlowe suspects that said bad crowd may also have something to do with the mysterious disappearance of one of Sternwood's employees. When Marlowe starts poking around, he finds there's a great deal more to the story than anyone realized-- and the more he pokes around, the more complex the whole thing gets.
You'll notice that simple (oversimplified, really, as getting into any detail on this plot would require massive spoilers) synopsis didn't say word one about Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian, played by Lauren Bacall. There's a reason for this; Vivian actually doesn't have a great deal to do with the plot. It's been said that in the original cut of the film, Bacall and Vickers had roughly equal screen time, but Raymond Chandler himself, remarking that Vickers eclipsed Bacall in both acting and screen presence, sent those same studio execs back to the cutting board, with the result that much of Vickers' screen time has never been seen. I've no idea if there's any truth to this or not, but it's yet another reason to fervently wish for a real director's cut of the film, if it's true. Vickers is on fire here (at least, when Carmen's not drugged, which seems to be about half the film), while Bacall, thanks to the meddling mentioned above, often plays as nothing more than a foil for Bogart's flirtation. It's the movie's tragic flaw, and the one that prevents me from listing The Big Sleep with the greatest movies of all time. Perhaps the crucial difference is that between Hawks and John Huston, who five years before managed to blow the ending of The Maltese Falcon so badly it still stings, but still managed to create one of the ten or so best films ever made. Hawks was certainly no amateur when he made The Big Sleep-- in fact, he'd already released some of his greatest achievements by the time this rolled around. (Maybe the fact that Huston was an amateur when he made The Maltese Falcon helped; one can never discount beginners' luck in these things.) I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially given the brilliance of pieces of this movie. The dialogue in much of it is witty and brilliant, it's wonderfully shot, and most of it is perfectly paced. All the more reason the added scenes and a few bits of overly abrupt editing find themselves highlighted. Again, I get the feeling Hawks is to blame for none of this, and one certainly can't blame the actors, who do their best. As nostalgic as we all wax about the old studio system and how wonderful it was, every once in a while, you run across evidence that things weren't always what they were cracked up to be. The Big Sleep qualifies. ***
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