Not a yawn!

I do not know why this 1946 movie is called 'The Big Sleep', it definitely did not put me to sleep. Especially when America's No.1 male actor of all time, the cigarette lit macho icon, the smart-talking Humphrey Bogart acts in it delivering his punch dialogue in a matter-of-factly way as if he knew everything that is going on around. Set in a dark smoky environment to set the mood of the genre of the movie (film noir), most of the movie is shot in dim lighting and most characters puffing away like steam trains! FYI, Bogart succumbed to oesophagal cancer at the age of 57.

Here he is paired with Lauren Bacall who acts as a sultry and flirty rich man's daughter. Bacall, almost half his age at that time, appear to blend quite well. This romance must have continued off-screen and ultimately wrecked his matrimony. Watching this movie, you would realise that many of things that most present viewers would know as a big 'No, No' in case of homicide like turning the body and touching things in the crime scene, is done. Well, viewers at that time were not exposed to 'CSI' and 'Law and Order'!

The police appear toothless and have to depend on Bogart to set things up who is at the liberty of doing what he pleases (with the interest of his paying clients at heart) which in the present day, be known as obstructing justice and tampering with evidence.The highlight of the film is the powerful dialogues and witty, incisive talks.

A General Sternwood hires Marlowe, a P.I., (Bogart) to investigate the debts of his gambling daughters discretely. Marlowe's work uncovers General's two pretty daughters who are pretty wild, the murder of the creditor (blackmailer), a gamut of a topsy-turvy rollercoaster of an adventure where the bad guys get killed or caught, and the good guy (Bogart) get the girl. Interestingly, I found a glimpse in one of the scenes of Marlowe spotting a wedding ring! Interesting!

Some lines of interest...

Sternwood: How do you like your brandy, sir?
Marlowe: In a glass.
Sternwood: I used to like mine with champagne. Champagne cold as Valley Forge and with about three ponies of brandy under it...I like to see people drink...You may take off your coat, sir...Too hot in here for any man who has any blood in his veins. You may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.  

The emaciated Sternwood describes the dreariness of his existence. The humid hothouse is necessary for his survival, and he is waiting for death - the "big sleep" of the title - in the temperature-controlled greenhouse:

Sternwood: You are looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life - crippled, paralyzed in both legs, very little I can eat, and my sleep is so near waking that it's hardly worth the name. I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider. The orchids are an excuse for the heat. Do you like orchids?
Marlowe: Not particularly.
Sternwood: Nasty things! Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.