I Watch Films: The Big Sleep
General Sternwood is old, ill, very rich and has two wild daughters. He hires Private Investigator Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) to deal with some blackmail on the younger of them. It seems he used to have a man, Sean Regan, former IRA member and rum-runner, who dealt with things like that for him, though mostly he kept the General company, but he vanished.
The elder daughter (Lauren Bacall) thinks Marlowe’s been hired to look for Regan. The blackmailer is found dead with the younger daughter. Things spiral out of control rapidly.
It’s been a while since I read the book so I’m not sure how closely it follows the plot. In any case it is quite complicated, and may not quite add up in the end. There are a lot of moving parts, with people stumbling into various bits of schemes and then creating their own plans on top of them.
It is still (or maybe because of this?) good California Film Noir, lots of witty banter. Every bit player has a character and something to do, with one highlight being the extraordinarily observant bookstore girl who Marlowe meets. In fact there are lots of sassy women as it was filmed during the war when lots of jobs were being done by women
Watch This: Classic film noir with murder, intrigue and barbed conversations
Don’t Watch This: If you want to actually know what’s going on most of the time.
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