Search - The Big Sleep on DVD

MPAA Rating: R Content Advisory: Violence, Nudity, Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language Movie Release: 1978 DVD Release: 08/22/2000 Format: DVD Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 42 mins Studio: Geneon Members Wishing: 4 Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Post-Noir (Modern Noir) See Also: The Big Sleep, The Big Sleep

Robert Mitchum reprises his role as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe from Farewell, My Lovely, in this misconceived remake of Howard Hawks's classic 1946 film -- transferring the setting from 1940s California to 1970s London. Marlowe is hired by a rich and dying General Sternwood (James Stewart) to find out who is blackmailing him. Marlowe then meets Sterwood's daughters -- the crazy and degenerate Camilla (Candy Clark) and the more even-tempered Charlotte (Sarah Miles). Opening up a can of worms, Marlowe unveils a collection of unsavory characters -- Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed), an inveterate gambler having an affair with Charlotte; Joe Brody (Edward Fox), Camilla's ex-lover; and Agnes (Joan Collins), a sexy bookstore clerk. The plot becomes even more chaotic when it is found that Camilla has been posing in the nude for pornographer Arthur Geiger (John Justin). When Geiger turns up dead, Camilla becomes implicated in Geiger's murder. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Robert Mitchum - Philip Marlowe
Sarah Miles - Charlotte Sternwood
Richard Boone - Lash Canino
Candy Clark - Camilla Sternwood
Joan Collins - Agnes Lozelle

With Robert Mitchum cast perfectly as detective Philip Marlowe in the winning 1975 version of Farewell, My Lovely, an adaptation of another Raymond Chandler detective novel seemed like a sure bet. Unfortunately, this Artisan Home Entertainment DVD release shows that lightning didn't strike twice with The Big Sleep. While the movie itself is rather anemic, placing the action in modern England instead of old Los Angeles, this shoddy DVD makes a perfectly okay movie much worse. Really no more than an expensive alternative to the video, the DVD shows the movie in the full screen pan-and-scan format instead of the theatrical widescreen aspect ratio and the sound mix is poor and muddy. While The Big Sleep is light years from being the classic movie that the earlier Howard Hawks version was, the film still deserves more than what this Artisan DVD gives it. ~ Nick Dedina, All Movie Guide