The Big Sleep (1946)

"What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was."

That's how Philip Marlowe sums up all that's gone before in the final pages of Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep. I include it here because the one thing I have always felt that Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep lacked was the internal monologue that narrates the novel. The film ends on an upbeat note, with Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) falling in love. The novel ends with Marlowe walking off by himself, leaving the corrupt Rutledges behind him. The novel is more effective. But 1946 was a different era. People wanted a happy ending - the bad guys all killed or jailed, the hero and heroine walking off together hand in hand, the world spinning in greased grooves once again. It was the effect of the war, I guess. The need for normalcy and happy endings. It's too bad too, because the film suffered on account of the lack of the monologue. Don't get me wrong though. I love this movie. It's one of my favorites. I just wish Hawks and screenwriter William Faulkner hadn't changed the story so much.

In the film, Marlowe is called to the home of dying millionare General Sternwood (Charles Waldron). Sternwood's being blackmailed. His youngest daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) has been gambling. General Sternwood wants Marlowe to take care of it. The conversation rolls around to Sean Regan, Sternwood's right hand man. Seems he's gone missing. There's talk he ran off with Mona Mars (Peggy Knudsen), the wife of big-time raketeer Eddie Mars (John Ridgely). As Marlowe is leaving, Vivan asks him if her father hired him to find Sean. Soon, Marlowe realizes that a lot of people would like to know what happened to Sean. Later, Marlowe discovers Carmen drugged and half naked with a dead man lying at her feet. Marlowe takes her home and returns to the scene of the crime, only to find that the dead man is gone. At this point, all hell breaks loose. The Sternwood's chaufer is murdered and dumped into the ocean. Eddie Mars seems to be everywhere. Carmen keeps popping up like a Whack-a-Mole. Marlowe finds out that he's being followed by Harry Jones (Elisha Cooke, Jr.). He's trying to help out Agnes (Sonia Darrin) who used to work for the guy who was killed at Carmen's feet. Then a couple of more people get dead. Sound confusing? It is. In fact, the novel is so confusing that Faulkner and co-writer Leigh Bracket couldn't figure out who killed one of the characters. They asked Chandler to tell them who done it, and Chandler himself was unable to point the finger at the culprit. But it all works out in the end. As I stated above - a happy ending for all of the good guys and gals.

Part of what makes The Big Sleep work, in spite of its transgressions, is the incredibly snappy dialogue written by Faulkner and Bracket. There is a lot of reparte' in this film. Consider Marlowe's first exchange with Eddie Mars:

Mars: Convenient the door being open when you didn't have a key.
Marlowe: Yeah, wasn't it? By the way, how did you happen to have one?
Mars: Is it any of your business?
Marlowe: I could make it my business.
Mars: I could make your business mine.
Marlowe: But you wouldn't like it. The pay's too small.
Mars: All right, I own this house. Geiger's my tenant. Now what do you think of me?
Marlowe: You know some nice people.
Mars: I take it as they come.

Or Marlowe's explanation of how the first two murders took place:

"You see, the dead man was Owen Taylor, Sternwood's chauffeur. He went up to Geiger's place 'cause he was sweet on Carmen. He didn't like the kind of games Geiger was playing. He got himself in the back way with a jimmy and he had a gun. And the gun went off as guns will, and Geiger fell down dead."

It's this snappy dialogue that sets this movie apart and really saves it. The film's other saving grace is Humphrey Bogart. Bogart had already established himself as the tough guy with his own code of honor in such films as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and The Petrified Forest. He cashes in on that persona here, playing Marlowe as smart and tough, yet sensitive to the needs of others who get caught up in the web of deceit that he finds himself tangled up in. Marlowe, is genuinely concerned for General Sternwood, as well as for Harry Jones and Agnes, two people who don't deserve the hand they get dealt. Hired to solve a minor blackmail case, Marlowe goes on to bring down Eddie Mars and discover how Sean got killed and who killed him, if for no other reason than to give the general some closure.

The Big Sleep is rated G and is filmed in Glorious black and white.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The McGuffin* is a bird. A statue of a falcon. About a foot tall. Made of gold and encrusted with jewels, covered all over with a coating of black enamel. It's value? Priceless. A thing that people kill for. The stuff that dreams are made of. So says Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) at the close of John Huston's The Maltese Falcon. Huston's film was the third screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's book. It was first filmed in 1931 with Bebe Daniels and Ricardo Cortez, then again in 1936 with Bette Davis and Warren Williams. But who remembers those films? Huston shot his film almost word for word, scene for scene, from Hammett's novel. It was a smart move. It created a masterpiece. And Humphrey Bogart has become everyone's vision of who Sam Spade is, even though Bogie doesn't look anything like the character described in the book. Who cares? It's Bogart.

One day, Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) shows up at the office of Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) with a cock-n-bull story about a missing sister and her evil abductor. She flashes money at them. They take the case. As private detectives, Archer and Spade are mostly honest, mostly ethical, but not afraid to bend a law, or a person, to the breaking point for a hundred bucks. Archer is killed that night. Brigid disappears. Spade finds her, grills her, is unsatisfied with her new story. Then Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) shows up, wearing a fancy suit and smelling like a rose garden. Wants to know if Sam has the bird. Is willing to pay for it. Next on the scene is Casper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr.). They want the bird too. During their first meeting, they ask nicely. During their second meeting, they take their gloves off. The Falcon is delivered to Sam's office late one night by a dying man. Captain of a tramp freighter. Case of lead poisoning. Now Sam's got a bargaining chip.

Sam calls a meeting at his apartment. All of the interested parties attend. They talk figures. They need a fall guy. Sam says Wilmer is made to order. They agree to stitch him up, much to Wilmer's dismay. Sam sends for the bird. When it arrives, Gutman eagerly unwraps it. His excitement is palpable. He starts to scratch the black enamel off the Falcon, only to discover that the bird underneath is not made of gold but of common lead. But Gutman knows who made the switch, and he and Cairo head off in search of the real Falcon. Wilmer takes it on the lamb. Sam has other plan's for Brigid, and they don't include a honeymoon cottage. After all, Sam may not be entirely honest, or entirely ethical, but he does live by a code of honor. It says when someone kills your partner, they have to pay. Brigid will pay.

The Maltese Falcon is one of those Hollywood films, like Casablanca, that wasn't a big or an important movie while it was being made. But once it was finished, they knew they had a gem. The movie takes place on a human scale. No grand vistas here. Huston filmed most of the exterior scenes on city streets, at night, with lots of fog and rain. Interior scenes are filmed in cramped apartments, offices, hotel rooms. Lots of shadows. Lots of atmosphere. This is the beginning of film noir. Interestingly, this was also the screen debut of Sydney Greenstreet. He'd been a stage actor for years, when Huston cast him as Casper Gutman, aka the Fat Man. Another bit of trivia - when Sam calls Wilmer a "gunsel," he doesn't mean that Wilmer is a hired gun; he's hinting at Wilmer's sexual orientation. According to the IMDb, "The Yiddish term 'gunsel', literally "little goose", may be a vulgarism for homosexual." Who knew?

The Maltese Falcon is a fun movie that keeps you guessing right up until the end. Who killed Miles? Who killed the captain of the steam ship? Is there really a Maltese Falcon? We aren't given the answers until the concluding scenes. It's a satisfying conclusion too.

The Maltese Falcon is rated G and is filmed in deliciously moody black and white.

*McGuffin was Alfred Hitchcock's term for whatever the object or idea is that spurs the characters to action and moves the plot along.