gayboy wrote in <f99ae2ad.0403030017.63080893@posting.google.com>:

i saw the original 1945 version of big sleep tonight. glorious flick
with a very cool bogart, a sleek and sexy bacall, with crisp dialogue,
and minimum violence with maximum impact. stylish movie, cynical but
romantic, stark but gorgeous.

but, i can't make heads or tails out of the plot. what in the hell
was going on?

The movie is a complete mess because the Production Code forced much
of the plot to be excised (for example Carmen Sternwood was involved
in a pornography ring and was naked when Marlowe found her) or mangled
beyond recognition. It really makes no sense, so you might as well
just read the book, which is fairly clear (although Chandler did
famously reply that he had no idea who killed one of the minor
characters--he was not involved in the screenplay because he was under
contract to another studio).

Bogart is THE Phillip Marlowe, however, and it's worth watching just
for that. Good 40s film noir, just don't try to understand what's
going on. You can't. The pre-release cut of the film (included on
the DVD) is a tad clearer but only a tad.

In article <nl6g40p56s4663ko3j8fe5lr2rk9hn5i4k@4ax.com>,
Steve Hanson <info@moveon.org> wrote:

The movie is a complete mess because the Production Code forced much
of the plot to be excised (for example Carmen Sternwood was involved
in a pornography ring and was naked when Marlowe found her) or mangled
beyond recognition. It really makes no sense, so you might as well
just read the book, which is fairly clear (although Chandler did
famously reply that he had no idea who killed one of the minor
characters--he was not involved in the screenplay because he was under
contract to another studio).

Bogart is THE Phillip Marlowe, however, and it's worth watching just
for that. Good 40s film noir, just don't try to understand what's
going on. You can't. The pre-release cut of the film (included on
the DVD) is a tad clearer but only a tad.

That settles it - gonna hafta' read the book, finally. The question of
what it was that would be incriminating about the photos has always
bugged me, at least a little; I'd sort of written it off as an aborted
attempt by Geiger to get photos of Carmen getting high (or something)
and then Brody just playing the bluff for Vivian ("there's nothing in
this photo that's worth five thousand dollars to anyone").

The plot of the film, which is certainly different from the book, isn't
indecipherable; it's just convoluted and chunks of exposition are
missing in the release version. If you really sit down with it, it all
makes sense - but you do have to fill in a couple of blanks (like that
Brody and Geiger both work for Mars, or at least work at his indulgence,
and he's letting them fight out their own little turf war).

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

Anyway, with Faulkner unable to answer for whatever reason, the studio sent a
telegram to Raymond Chandler, who telegraphed back "The butler did it." They quickly
realized that the butler was one of the few who couldn't possibly have done it.

On 2004-03-05, WareWolf <dustyr@NONONOnc.rr.com> wrote:

Anyway, with Faulkner unable to answer for whatever reason, the studio sent a
telegram to Raymond Chandler, who telegraphed back "The butler did it." They quickly
realized that the butler was one of the few who couldn't possibly have done it.

Who ya' gonna believe?

"One of the greatest detective films to come out of Hollywood, THE BIG SLEEP
is perhaps most notorious for its famous unsolved murder--that of the
Sternwood chauffeur. The unwieldy plot, scripted by William Faulkner, kept
Hawks busy trying to figure out the puzzle. When Hawks called Chandler to
ask the killer's identity, the writer reportedly stated: "How should I know?
You figure it out," and hung up."

http://www.tvguide.com/Movies/database/showmovie.asp?MI=8792

nb

2 One of the famous stories connected with the film concerns the murder of
the
chauffeur; Hawks recounts that nobody was able to work out who had killed
him, and
when they asked Chandler, his only answer was, -'The butler did it." (See
Fiction,
Film, and Faulkner cit., p. 48.) The story is confirmed in Chandler's
letters. (See
Raymond Chandler Speaking, edited by Dorothy Gardiner and Kathrine Sorley
Walker,
London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962, p. 205-6.)

So who knows?