 [Larger view] | The Big Sleep
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 MITCHUM VERSUS BOONE MAKES "BIG SLEEP" WORTH WATCHING. | |
| Okay, Mitchum isn't Humphrey Bogart but the 1979 "Big Sleep" is a great way to kill 90-minutes. This version of "Sleep" begins with Marlowe (Mitchum) visiting Gen. Sternwood (a pallid Jimmy Stewart) at his palatial estate in England. Sternwood wants Marlowe to help him resolve a blackmail sceme involving one of his daughters. This is easily the most sleazy film Stewart ever appeared in; however Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Joan Collins and Oliver Reed seem right at home here. Richard Boone clearly has a hell of a time playing Mitchum's toughest adversary since Robert Ryan in "The Racket." For Michael Winner's best directorial effort take a look at "Lawman," with Burt Lancaster, Ryan and Lee J. Cobb. | |
| Robert Mitchum - a first class Marlowe | |
| Though I agree that this DVD is not as good as "Farewell, My Lovely", it still is superior to the Humphrey Bogart version. Bogart was very good at playing many roles, but 'The Big Sleep' comletely missed the mark. The ending of the Bogart version is almost criminal and completely corrupts the rest of the movie. Compare the 'Hollywood' ending of the Bogart version with the novel's famous last paragraph being read by Mitchum in this one. It's unfortunate that the rest of the movie was not up to Mitchum's level but it is worth owning another Marlowe movie with Robert Mitchum. Watch the original because you like Bogart/Bacall, but if you want to experience The Big Sleep, watch this one and buy the book (you'll hear Mitchum's voice as you read). | |
| Try It, You Might Like It | |
| Not being particularly fond either of Raymond Chandler or of the "classic" 1946 adaption of THE BIG SLEEP, I am perhaps more disposed than most to like Michael Winner's 1978 re-make. Shorn of Bogart and Bacall, the earlier film isn't much more than a routine detective saga. (The screenplay was co-written by William Faulkner, but if I absolutely have to deal with Faulkner, I'd prefer to do it with one of his lugubrious novels.) Still, if you choose to re-make an icon, even one made of brass, you're practically begging for trouble. If you can get past the gall of trying to re-make a "classic," you can see that Winner's film, while no masterpiece, is decently entertaining. It ably uses the English locations, takes advantage of the greater freedoms of the 1970s and boasts a first-rate cast. Mitchum, in his way, is every bit as good as Bogart. Sarah Miles isn't in Bacall's class as a larger than life image, but she's a superior actress and does a creditable job. Many of the supporting performances are at least as good as their counterparts in the 1946 film, including Jimmy Stewart, Harry Andrews, Edward Fox, Colin Blakely, Oliver Reed, and Joan Collins. Even Richard Boone, usually a bit of chore, uses his over-sized presence to good effect. If you've seen any of Winner's other films, like DEATH WISH or SCORPIO, you know pretty much what to expect. His direction is, as usual, obnoxiously showy and rushed. There are sudden, incomprehensible close-ups on unimportant actions, unmovitated, low-camera angles, flashy zooms, and awkward compositions designed presumably to remind us that someone is behind the camera. His is almost the epitome of "70s filmmaking," for better or worse. Still, at least he has a style, which, despite the laborious efforts of auteurist critics to reveal it, I have never been able to see in Hawks's dry as dust filmmaking. I don't exactly recommend THE BIG SLEEP. I know that a lot of people, particularly anyone worshipping at the altar of "classic" Hollywood, will find it offensive. If I say I prefer it to the earlier film, it is not in an attempt to turn it into a transcendant work of art. BOTH versions are hack work. They are perhaps best understood as what mainstream filmmakers of middling talent were able to accomplish in 1946 and 1978, and dealt with accordingly. |
