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.

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Nighttime. The California coast. A classy, Deco-style beach house. A man in a tuxedo Stands in front of a mirror, holding a cigarette. Shots ring out. He drops dead. A gun is thrown down beside him. A car speeds away into the fog. So begins Michael Curtiz's classic film Mildred Pierce. Based on the novel by James M. Caine, the film tells the story of a divorced woman who is willing to do just about anything to provide her worthless daughter with a comfortable lifestyle. Mildred (Joan Crawford) is a divorced mother of two daughters - sweet tomboy Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe) and her twisted older sister Veda (Ann Blythe). Veda wants every good thing that money can buy, without actually having to work for it herself of course. Veda is shocked when Mildred takes a job as a waitress and bakes pies and cakes at home for extra income, but not too shocked to spend the money. With the help of an old friend and realtor, Wally Fay (Jack Carson), Mildred opens her own chain of restaurants, which makes her quite wealthy. When she gets romantically involved with Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), a down-at-the-heels socialite, Veda is thrilled. Monte will give her access to the upper crust of society. You can probably see where all of this is heading. Veda tries it on with Monte, and Mildred catches them in flagrante dilecto. Mildred has a gun and the gun goes off, as guns do, and Monte falls down dead. Seems he's allergic to lead. Ah, but who made the gun go bang? That's the question. The police want to know. You probably do too, but I'm not telling.

Mildred Pierce is a wonderfully crafted piece of film noir, full of deep shadows and rainy streets. Numerous times the actors are completely blacked out, appearing as nothing more than silhouettes against a slightly lighter backdrop. Even the daytime scenes seem dense with shadows. The darkness limits our field of vision, forming the boundaries of the possible world, blocking off potential escape routes, and creating claustrophobic mood that heightens the tension and the desperation of the characters. Notice how the light and airy beach house becomes a labyrinth of shadows when the night rolls in. See how Curtiz barely lights the office of Inspector Peterson (Moroni Olsen). The scene where Mildred is waiting to be interviewed by the Inspector is one of my favorites. She sits in the echoing room in the middle of the night, the only sounds the ticking of the clock, the tapping of a typewriter, and the occasional rustle of a newspaper. Mildred's tension builds. So does ours. The buzzing of the intercom causes her to jump. I nearly jumped with it. I see now that HBO has done a remake of Mildred Piecrce starring Kate Winslett. I'm sure Winslett will be good, but she'll never be Crawford. And while the color ciematography is appropriately dark and moody, it cannot match the original with its velvety blacks and its all too numerous shades of gray.

Mildred Pierce is one of my all time favorite movies. It ranks right up there with Casablanca (also directed by Curtiz) and Citizen Kane. It's a early moral tale about how much overcompensating by parents who feel guilty about a broken home can damage children for life. At one point in the film Veda tells Mildred, "You made me what I am." She's right - partly. Mildred's obsession with having her daughters succeed didn't turn Veda into a heartless, social-climbing, money-grubbing monster. Kay, had she lived, wouldn't have turned out that way. Mildred only opened the door to that world. Veda ran through it with her eyes wide open.

Mildred Pierce is rated G and is available in moody black and white.

Casablanca (1942)

Casablanca. It's hard to know exactly what to say about what is arguably the greatest movie ever produced. It's right up there with Citizen Kane. I mean, they don't come any better than this. Casablanca. Even the title conjures up images in our minds - the hot sun, the stuccoed buildings, the lazily-turning ceiling fan, the crowded market place, the furtive glances, the shadowy figure standing just out of sight, the blood running between the cobblestones in the street. And yet, most people I know have never even seen the movie. And then there's that quote. You know the one. Most people get it wrong. Still, it's part of American culture.

Casablanca follows the adventures of American ex-pat Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), his one-time love Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). Blaine is an idealist who fought for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War, ran guns for the Ethiopians, and edits a newspaper in Paris, where he meets and falls in love with Ilsa. When the Nazis invade Paris, Ilsa and Rick decide to escape on the last train out, but Ilsa never shows up. Standing on the platform in the pouring rain, Rick reads Ilsa'a "Dear John" letter. As the rain washes her words off the paper, Rick's piano-playing friend Sam (Dooley Wilson) drags him onto the train. The embittered Rick ends up in Casablanca, in French Morocco, where he opens Rick's Café Américaine, a bar where all of the hapless foreigners show up to gamble, to plot their escape, to steal or simply to drink their troubles away.

All of this is shown in a superb flashback that occurs about a third of the way through the movie. When Ilsa shows up at Rick's with Laszlo - one of the heroes of the French underground - we don't know why Rick looks like he's about to toss his breakfast, but Sam does. Laszlo needs to get to America or England. The Nazis want to stop him. The French Chief of Police, Louis Renault (Claude Reins), worries that his corrupt, albeit comfortable, life is about to be seriously disrupted. Rick has letters of transit that will get two people out of Casablanca, but he refuses to sell them to Laszlo. Rick wants to hurt Ilsa as much as she hurt him, not seeing - at least not at first - that she's already hurting just as badly. She's married to Laszlo, who loves her dearly, but she's in love with Rick, who loves her even more. The final scene at the airport is one of the greatest in all of motion picture history.

Director Michael Curtiz makes the most of Julius and Philip Epstein's screenplay, and the score by Max Steiner is one of the best ever produced. Notice how he weaves the pop standard "As Time Goes By" and "La Marseillaise" throughout the score. If you've never watched Casablanca, rent it soon. Find out what all the fuss is about. Discover for yourself why Rick wants Sam to play it again. My guess is you'll want to do the same.

Casablanca is rated G and is available in glorious black and white.

The White Countess (2005)

The White Countess of Merchant-Ivory's film The White Countess is a nightclub. It is also a woman. Both are located in Shanghai int he days just prior to the Japanese invasion, and both are the obsession of Todd Jackson - a former U.S. diplomat who was blinded in a terrorist bombing. Jackson (as played by Ralph Fiennes) dreams of owning the perfect bar, a place where he can escape from the violence and chaos raging in the world. The Countess Sofia Belinskaya (Natasha Richardson) has no more dreams. What she has is her work as a taxi dancer, her daughter, and her egregiously ungrateful in-laws. When Jackson meets the countess, all of the pieces of his dream fall into place, and he creates The White Countess - the perfect bar - with the Countess Belinskaya as its centerpiece. Within this exotic - dare I say romantic - mise en scéne, the film follows these two damaged, world-weary souls as they stumble warily towards each other. Unfortunately, the film stumbles a bit too. Looking a little like Casablanca, Empire of the Sun and Doctor Zhivago all rolled into one, The White Countess can't quite seem to find its footing. Is it a love story set against the backdrop of war with undercurrents of political intrigue? Or is it a war movie set against a backdrop of political intrigue with a love story subplot? Or...well, you get the picture. Don't get me wrong - the film is a visual feast. After all, it is Merchant-Ivory. The acting is superb all around, and the soundtrack is real Oscar-nomination stuff. It's just that all of those wonderful pieces don't quite come together this time. If you're a Merchant-Ivory fan, rent this film, watch it, soak in the images and sounds, drool over Fiennes and Richardson, but try not to pay too much attention to the movie stumbling around behind it all.

The White Countess is rated PG-13.