The Big Sleep (1946 Howard Hawks)

I'm beginning to follow the plot a little better.., give it another 5 - 10 viewings and I'll be there. I do know that really the only important thing to glean is what happened to Sean Reagan. And I'm afraid I missed it again.

I find it how funny how sexually attractive Bogie's character is to just about every woman he meets. And how mocking he is of anyone who tries to pull a gun on him.

December 2022:

Watched The Big Sleep again, properly this time - well as properly as you can after 15 brandies.

Thoughts? I got how good the script /dialogue is last time. (Forget the plot.) Bogie is like Poirot (always ahead of the game). "How do you like your brandy?" "In a glass."

Exchanges between Bogie and Bacall are fantastic (e.g. 'in the saddle', 'comes from behind' etc.)

I like when they phone the police and he starts saying 'my daughter wouldn't like that'-  it's got the flavour of They All Laughed (or rather, the other way around). Both films have sexy girl taxi drivers also (is They All Laughed  a remake of The Big Sleep?) And this is kind of where the Coen Brothers come from (Fargo).

I mean, it's great casting. I particularly like Martha Vickers as the bad sister. And that's a young Dorothy Malone as the bookstore owner (is that the origin of the scene where a girl takes off her glasses, lets her hair down and looks fantastic, or had this been done zillions of times before?)

"She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up."

Maybe Max Steiner's best score, certainly my favourite of his. Orchestrated (uncredited) by Simon Bucharoff

Somehow I love all the character names even though no one ever understands the plot: Colonel Sternwood, Eddie Mars, Sean Reagan, Mrs Rutledge, Geiger. Bob Steele good as - here's another one -Lash Canino. John Ridgely also good as Eddie Mars. The cop is Regis Toomey.

Is this Bogart's only moment of camp?

"Would you happen to have a copy of a Ben Hur 1860?"

Elisha Cook Jr is in it briefly. That moment after he's been poisoned - "Nothing's funny" - is somehow haunting and eerie. Also that guy from It's a Wonderful Life, Tom Fadden.

The ear (he keeps pulling his ear).

Is it - to coin Paul Schrader - monocular? Bogie seems to be in every scene... It's certainly a film noir...

Photographed by Sid Hickox, edited by Christian Nyby.