Search - The Big Sleep on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Violence, Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1946 DVD Release: 02/15/2000 Format: DVD - Black and White Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, French SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 3 hrs 50 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Members Wishing: 12 Genres: Mystery, Film Noir, Romantic Mystery See Also: The Big Sleep

The definitive Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall vehicle, The Big Sleep casts Bogart as Raymond Chandler's cynical private eye Philip Marlowe. Summoned to the home of the fabulously wealthy General Sternwood (Charles Waldron), Marlowe is hired to deal with a blackmailer shaking down the General's sensuous, thumb-sucking daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers). This earns Marlowe the displeasure of Carmen's sloe-eyed, seemingly straight-laced older sister Vivian (Bacall), who is fiercely protective of her somewhat addled sibling. As he pursues the case at hand, Marlowe gets mixed up in the murder of Arthur Geiger (Theodore von Eltz), a dealer in pornography. He also runs afoul of gambling-house proprietor Eddie Mars (John Ridgely), who seems to have some sort of hold over the enigmatic Vivian. Any further attempts to outline the plot would be futile: the storyline becomes so complicated and convoluted that even screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthmann were forced to consult Raymond Chandler for advice (he was as confused by the plot as the screenwriters). When originally prepared for release in 1945, The Big Sleep featured a long exposition scene featuring police detective Bernie Ohls (Regis Toomey) explaining the more obscure plot details. This expository scene was ultimately sacrificed, along with several others, in favor of building up Bacall's part; for instance, a climactic sequence was reshot to emphasize sexual electricity between Bogart and Bacall, obliging Warners to replace a supporting player who'd gone on to another project. The end result was one of the most famously baffling film noirs but also one of the most successful in sheer star power. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Humphrey Bogart - Philip Marlowe
Lauren Bacall - Vivian Sternwood Rutledge
John Ridgely - Eddie Mars
Martha Vickers - Carmen Sternwood
Charles D. Brown - Norris, The Butler

Warner Home Video's release of The Big Sleep is what DVD should, ideally, be about. The way the movie is treated, the care that has been taken in presenting the two very different cuts of the movie, and the history explaining why the movie exists in two substantially different versions is exactly what DVD viewers will happily pay their money to own -- a five-star treatment of a five-star movie.
The Big Sleep was issued in its official 1946 version in a fair laserdisc edition at the end of the 1980s, with no extras to speak of. In the interim, between the late '80s and the end of the '90s, was the official issue to theaters of what is known as the 1945 "pre-release" version of the movie (which was known to exist for decades, but had never been made available). That version of the movie contains 18 minutes of material that was either removed altogether or reshot, and both it and the familiar 1946 version are included on the DVD, one film to a side, along with a 16-minute documentary that compares the differences between the two cuts of the movie. The first part of the documentary is enjoyable enough, though the second half, loaded with excerpts from the two versions of the film, will probably confuse many people. Both sides of the disc come with the same menu and supplements, including the original trailer, which is cleverly built around a couple of shots from the film itself and Humphrey Bogart stepping out of character to glance through the original Raymond Chandler novel. The menu opens automatically and is easy to maneuver around, and the special feature function is straightforward and simple to use. Each side is broken down into 32 chapters, but the chaptering has been carefully done (and equally well labeled) to delineate the differences in the two versions of the movie.
The two different versions of the movie are what really count, however, and they are fascinating to watch. The 1945 pre-release version is a less fiercely sexual film, but also an easier movie to comprehend -- it's a fine, tense, complicated, but fairly straightforward detective movie that probably would have been a reasonable success if released, despite some unbelievably bad decisions made in connection with Lauren Bacall's wardrobe in a couple of scenes, some unflattering camera angles, and a few scenes that were never explored fully for their potential, all of which was fixed in the reshooting that took place over a year later. In the process, some of the logic that made the 1945 version of the movie a brilliant detective movie was also stripped out, including one scene in the district attorney's office that not only explained a lot of the movie's action, but which, if it had been left in, would have been the granddaddy of all cinematic tales of corruption in Los Angeles' law enforcement for decades to come, right through to Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. Instead, Howard Hawks and the studio decided to let the characters and personalities, rather than the story, drive the movie, and to get Bogart and Bacall to play those characters to the hilt. The result, the familiar 1946 version, is more overt in its sexual attraction between Bogart and Bacall (who had become husband and wife in the time between the initial shooting and the retakes), and more fun -- like a roller-coaster ride with lots of sexual banter between two of the riders -- without any letup or flagging of its pace. The 1946 version also looks and sounds better than the laserdisc ever did. The presence of the 1945 version is essential, however, to understanding how the final cut of the film evolved -- it is doubtful that Hawks or Warner Bros. would have felt sufficiently comfortable reshaping the movie the way they finally did without first creating the best "straight" detective story possible. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide