The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep will be one of my supporting films. It is a film noir from 1946 and is therefore not apart of the pre-code era which is my focus. However I read, when doing research about censorship about how the production code in America asked for many cuts and changes to be made to this film, in order for it to fit with their requirements and thus be shown in Cinema.

It is a Bogart and Bacall movie (Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, husband and wife) whom were known to do a collection of films together, probably most renowned for To Have and Have Not, along with many others. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, and much like most pre-code or 'Golden Age' films was adapted from a book, in this occasion, of the same name.

The synopsis is as follows:

Summoned by the dying General Sternwood, Philip Marlowe is asked to deal with several problems that are troubling his family. Marlowe finds that each problem centers about the disappearance of Sternwood's favoured employee who has left with a mobster's wife. Each of the problems becomes a cover for something else as Marlowe probes.     

In the 40s the Production Code (or PCA) was laying down the law, so to speak, on all Hollywood big named films, so that they were eligible for mass public viewing. However the guidelines in the PCA then stated that the Warner Bros. studio could not in any of their pictures reference many things, some of which were: "illegal drug traffic" "sex perversion" or "complete nudity" which were written about in the original book, The Big Sleep. Therefore Carmen's drug taking, Gieger's homosexuality and his pornographic book racket, which were never in detail mentioned in the film, were written out of the script in the early stages of production.

As The Big Sleep's forty-two day shooting schedule (1944) was about to go underway the final scene was rejected by the PCA. This scene depicts Marlowe having been responsible for Carmen's death; therefore not keeping in suite with the typical 'hero figure'. The script was looked at and altered further so that Carmen does not die. However more complications arouse and various shots had to be re-shot. In the summer of 1945 the film was premiered, released and found, both too bleak and too complex and disfigured to follow; due to this the PCA then advised more romance to be portrayed between Marlowe and Vivian, so that the story was one of love, more than of crime and murder; this meant more re-writes and further shooting and therefore a re-release with additional scenes and retakes to give Bacall a bigger part, finally came out in August 1946.

Some reviews:
"The Big Sleep is one of those pictures in which so many cryptic things occur amid so much involved and devious plotting that the mind becomes utterly confused. And, to make it more aggravating, the brilliant detective in the case is continuously making shrewd deductions which he stubbornly keeps to himself. What with two interlocking mysteries and a great many characters involved, the complex of blackmail and murder soon becomes a web of utter bafflement. Unfortunately, the cunning script-writers have done little to clear it at the end"-Bosley Crowther

"The plot's crazily mystifying, nightmare blur is an asset, and only one of many"-Time

"This classic of American cinema, actually made during the war and released in 1946, got a whole nation of young men affecting Bogey mannerisms, raising their eyebrows or showing their teeth while grimacing, and especially pulling on their earlobes while deep in thought, a smoking cigarette dangling between their lips. It was the genius of Howard Hawks, who directed, to do everything possible to make Humphrey Bogart a matinée idol, including having Lauren Bacall slump down in the car seat so as not to tower over him. With this movie a new kind of cinematic hero was created, the existential PI, a seemingly ordinary looking guy gifted with street smarts and easy courage, admired by men, and adored by women"- IMDb

"Perfect on every sense. Great cast, with terrific Bogart and Bacall. Complex and interesting plot and smart dialogues. Only "funny" thing, if we want to say something, is the "perception" of the women roles in the movie. They are strangely all sexy and attracted to and tempting Philip Marlow"-Movie Database

Box Office:
rentals: $3,000,000
Budget wise its hard too find out, due to the many re-shoots and re-writes as well as the two different realises.