Was there ever a better botched movie than The Big
Sleep? Botched, you say? Totally botched.
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If you get a chance (or want to borrow mine) take a look at
the DVD version of The Big Sleep with the original movie on it. The Big Sleep was filmed, but before it was
released, To Have and Have Not made the Bogart / Bacall pairing famous. And so The Big Sleep was recut to feature
more of the pair. Then it was reshot for
scenes to make the paring sexier. And
then it was reediting, but still didn’t completely work. Finally they just released it. And it is a masterpiece and a mess (if you
think about it).
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The Big Sleep is a prototypical Film Noir. Bogart is Philip Marlowe hired to get the
youngest daughter of a rich old man out of a blackmail scheme. Bacall is the older daughter, who wants to
know what is going on. Turns out, she is
involved with the blackmailer – albeit not the blackmail. She falls for Marlowe
– who has an afternoon quickie in a bookstore with a blink-and-you-miss-her
Dorothy Malone.
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| Here there is a knock on the door and the man with the gun says to Philip, "Who is it?" He answers, "I don't know, that gun makes this your party." |
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The author, Raymond Chandler, loved the movie, but described
the reedited story as a confusing mess where one murder is never solved and you
don’t notice it. Bogart and Bacall were
never better than in this story. It goes
on for too long for those with a short attention span – but it is wonderful.
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