Big Sleep
‘The Big Sleep’ is wakeful fare for folks who don't care what is going on, or why, so long as the talk is hard and the action harder.
The Big Sleep
Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.
THE BIG SLEEP 75th Anniversary Screening
The Bogie and Bacall Classic Plays at Laemmle Newhall
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the classic 1946 detective mystery starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, screening September 2 at our Newhall theater.
The Big Sleep is an engrossing mystery thriller that has defied classification since its premiere in 1946. Although it is now considered a cornerstone of film noir, critics and journalists through the years have also described it as a black comedy and even a “screwball love story.” Deftly directed by Howard Hawks and written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman adapting Raymond Chandler’s first novel, it is the second teaming of Bogart with his wife Lauren Bacall, after the two created a screen sensation in Hawk’s To Have and Have Not in 1944. The film is noted for its convoluted plot (just try to follow it), partially because several scenes were re-written and re-shot for the second, final release in 1946. (A 1945 version was shown to U.S. troops overseas at the end of WWII.) The 1946 official release was added to the National Film Registry in 1997, and it is this version that we will present.
Bogart’s turn as shrewd shamus Philip Marlowe solidified his reputation, and Chandler praised him as “so much better than any other tough-guy actor.” His verbal interplay with Bacall flirted with contemporary screen censorship, as the duo wove the mystique of “Bogie and Bacall.” Critics of the day were as baffled by the plot as audiences, but as Leonard Maltin has pointed out, the movie is “so incredibly entertaining that no one has ever cared.” That high entertainment quotient stems from Hawk’s sharp direction, the biting and witty script, actors at the top of their game (Dorothy Malone, Martha Vickers, and Elisha Cook Jr. among them), atmospheric black-and-white cinematography by Sid Hickox, and a noteworthy music score by Steiner.
The Bogie and Bacall Classic Plays at Laemmle Newhall
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the classic 1946 detective mystery starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, screening September 2 at our Newhall theater.
The Big Sleep is an engrossing mystery thriller that has defied classification since its premiere in 1946. Although it is now considered a cornerstone of film noir, critics and journalists through the years have also described it as a black comedy and even a “screwball love story.” Deftly directed by Howard Hawks and written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman adapting Raymond Chandler’s first novel, it is the second teaming of Bogart with his wife Lauren Bacall, after the two created a screen sensation in Hawk’s To Have and Have Not in 1944. The film is noted for its convoluted plot (just try to follow it), partially because several scenes were re-written and re-shot for the second, final release in 1946. (A 1945 version was shown to U.S. troops overseas at the end of WWII.) The 1946 official release was added to the National Film Registry in 1997, and it is this version that we will present.
Bogart’s turn as shrewd shamus Philip Marlowe solidified his reputation, and Chandler praised him as “so much better than any other tough-guy actor.” His verbal interplay with Bacall flirted with contemporary screen censorship, as the duo wove the mystique of “Bogie and Bacall.” Critics of the day were as baffled by the plot as audiences, but as Leonard Maltin has pointed out, the movie is “so incredibly entertaining that no one has ever cared.” That high entertainment quotient stems from Hawk’s sharp direction, the biting and witty script, actors at the top of their game (Dorothy Malone, Martha Vickers, and Elisha Cook Jr. among them), atmospheric black-and-white cinematography by Sid Hickox, and a noteworthy music score by Steiner.
Genre
Crime,
Noir,
Mystery,
Anniversary Classics
Web Site
Runtime
114
Language
English
Director
Howard Hawks
Writer(s)
William Faulkner,
Leigh Brackett,
Jules Furthman,
Raymond Chandler (novel)
Cast
Humphrey Bogart,
Lauren Bacall,
Charles Waldron,
John Ridgely,
Theodore von Eltz,
Dorothy Malone,
Martha Vickers
FEATURED REVIEW
Manny Farber, The New Republic
The Big Sleep is an unsentimental, surrealist excitement in which most of the men in Hollywood’s underworld are murdered and most of the women go for an honest but not unwilling private sleuth (Humphrey Bogart). Coinciding with the special prominence of the private detective in Hollywood movies, he ...
Played at
NoHo 7 11.30.16 - 11.30.16
Playhouse 7 11.30.16 - 11.30.16
Royal 11.30.16 - 11.30.16
Newhall 9.02.21 - 9.02.21
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