"The Big Sleep" - Film Review

The Big Sleep is one of those films where everyone talks fast and thinks even faster. It’s a good old fashioned mystery wrapped up in a noir hardboiled detective narrative.

It’s a film that’s constantly playing around with shadows (as noir’s do) and in the lighting we’re given much of the sense of ambiguity and complexity that drives The Big Sleep. The intricacies of the mystery become ever more interwoven as the film progresses (to the point of convolution) but you don’t need to get every little detail to enjoy The Big Sleep. The pleasures of the film are in its performances, in its dialogue and in its atmosphere. 

It’s a film where every person is smart. Every person is trying to outwit every other person around them. When people speak, their words are sharp and biting; they’re knowingly clever. The script by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman is filled with some memorable one liners and some dialogue that’s so fast paced it’s occasionally overlapping. The dialogue crackles. Of course, this is perhaps best seen in the film’s two star headliners Humphrey Bogart and Lauran Bacall (who were married in real life). Humphrey Bogart feels like an individual born to play a private eye (and he did on a few occasions including The Maltese Falcon). Bacall is the necessary femme fatale who Bogart’s detective Phillip Marlowe is drawn to despite himself. Bacall isn’t a typical beauty but this is all in her favor; she’s pretty but in a nontraditional way, sultry, dangerous. 

Marlowe is hired to learn who is blackmailing a family. This inevitably becomes more complicated and involves an array of colorful characters, played by some great supporting actors. One memorable supporting performance comes in the form of Bacall's sister, a charmingly deceptive ingenue, played by Martha Vickers, and Dorothy Malone steals her one scene as a shop girl.

The Big Sleep allows us to learn things as Bogart does. The film’s perspective never shifts away from Bogart as he investigates. The mystery is so effective, despite how little sense it makes, because Bogart is smart but he’s always two steps behind trying to catch up. And he does in due time but it’s a good deal of fun to watch Bogart figure out every piece of the puzzle, especially as he falls into a scrapes with criminals and operators. The best of these run ins though are between Bogart and Bacall; this is their movie and it's their sparring that elevates the film above what storytelling problems it may have.    

The film may be dark at turns, but it’s also rather playful. The dialogue has the care of someone who just loves the use of language. The repartee between various characters is so strong that the mystery is just an added bonus. 

The Big Sleep is a fun and thrilling noir mystery carried by a great script and winning performances especially from Bogart and Bacall. 

Grade: A