One of the ways that I’ve entertained myself during the time of a global plague is by reading a novel, watching its adapted film, and then comparing the two. Over the last couple of days, The Big Sleep received this treatment.
The plot is about the same in both the novel and film. The ending is different, which I’ll get to in a bit. Phillip Marlowe is a private detective (a shamus). He is hired by the very wealthy and dying General Sherwood that happens to have two wild daughters, Vivian and Carmen. The General is being blackmailed by a man named Geiger due to actions of his daughter Carmen and wants Marlowe to fix it. The General implicitly also wants Marlowe to find a former confidant of his named Regan. Marlowe stakes out Geiger’s house. He hears a shot. He investigates and finds Geiger dead and Carmen passed out in a chair. He takes Carmen home and when he returns to Geiger’s house, Geiger’s body is missing. The Sherwood’s chauffeur, Owen Taylor, has driven one of their cars off a pier. It’s not clear if its suicide or murder.
The next day Marlowe finds a man named Brody taking over Geiger’s business. Brody tries to blackmail Carmen. Marlowe goes to Brody’s apartment. Carmen bursts in and tries unsuccessfully to kill Brody. Brody is then killed then by Geiger’s friend, Carol Lundgren. Marlowe captures Lundgren and turns him over to the police. Lundgren confesses to moving Geiger’s body.
Thus solving the blackmail problem, Marlowe turns his attention to Regan. He meets with a casino gangster named Eddie Mars. It’s rumored that Regan has run off with Mars’ wife. Through more murders and mayhem, Marlowe finds Mars’ wife hidden away by one of Mars’ henchmen. Marlowe gets captured at the hideaway but gets free and murders the henchman.
Out of all this, it comes out that Carmen had tried to seduce Regan. He rebuffed her. In a rage, she killed Regan. Vivian engaged Mars to help with a cover-up. Mars did help by disposing of Regan’s body, hiding away his wife, and starting the rumor that the two had run away with each other. Mars is now using this information to blackmail Vivian.
Here, the plot splits out a bit. In the novel, Carmen tries to seduce Marlowe and is rebuffed. In revenge she tries and fails to kill Marlowe. Vivian promises to institutionalize Carmen but will continue to be blackmailed by Mars. Marlowe heads off to a bar to drink scotch and to ruminate upon his adventures.
In the film, Vivian confesses all. She agrees to institutionalize Carmen. Marlowe indirectly gets Mars killed. Marlowe and Vivian realize that they are in love with each other. The film ends with them together.
So, what’s the verdict?
I say that the book wins this time. Usually I give the nod to the book because it allows for so much more plot and detail. In true noir manner, in this case the novel is pretty straightforward. There’s not a lot of turns in the novel that don’t play out on the screen as well.
Some of the problem is, yes, I’ve talked about it before, the Hays Code. There are some pretty explicit things that can’t be dealt with in the film. Geiger is a pornographer and it is naked pictures that he is using as blackmail. Geiger is gay and Lundgren is his lover. Without knowing this, Lundgren’s actions are pretty incomprehensible. Carmen is not just passed out in a chair when caught at Geiger but is naked as well. In the book, Regan is actually Vivian’s estranged husband. I honestly don’t understand why that was left out.
I hate to say it, but some of the problem is with Humphrey Bogart. He starred in The Maltese Falcon as Sam Spade. If you read the two novels, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe are two pretty distinct characters. There is simply no difference between Bogart’s two performances. Since I’d seen The Maltese Falcon fairly recently, I was disappointed at Bogart’s performance in The Big Sleep.
Two minor male characters in the novel were switched over to female roles in the film. I was thinking that that was actually a pretty progressive move on the part of the film makers, but alas no, they were switched to being women just so that they could be seen swooning over Phillip Marlowe. Once again we have a movie where very young women are throwing themselves at a middle aged, pretty beaten down man. Humphrey Bogart is 47 at the time of this film and it shows. All of the women appear to be in their early 20s.
Having said that, sometimes life does imitate art. Lauren Bacall, playing Vivian here, did marry Bogart when she was 21 and he was 46.
The acting in the film was very tough guy noirish. All dialog was spoken fast and without affect. This is contrast to the film The Maltese Falcon, where you had interesting actors like Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Interestingly, Elisha Cook Jr has small roles in both films and his role as Wilmer in The Maltese Falcon is much more interesting than the Harry Jones role here.
Part of the problem might have something to do with the fact that they did try to cram all of the plot from the novel in the film. There was so much A to B to C to D plot movement that there wasn’t really a whole lot of time to explore character. It might have been served to have simplified the plot a bit. One of the screenplay’s credit went to William Faulkner. Yes, that William Faulkner. Considering the pretty mechanical translation of novel to film, I’m guessing that his heart might not have been in it all that much.
One final note about both the film and the novel. There is a famous plot hole in The Big Sleep. In neither is it ever explained what happened to the Sternwood’s chauffeur. Was it suicide or murder? It turns out that Chandler wasn’t all that concerned about such niceties. When he was asked, he confessed that he didn’t know.
That murkiness plays better in the novel than in the film. The novel is told in the first person by Marlowe. There is no omniscient narrator. Really the only two options are that Taylor either killed himself or that Brody murdered him. Given that both characters are dead, there is no way for Marlowe to know. Therefore, from the point of view of a first person narrated novel, that’s actually consistent (even if it’s annoying to readers that want all loose ends tied up).
So, my recommendation is to read the novel. If you want to see Bogart playing a tough guy LA gumshoe, watch The Maltese Falcon instead.
dorkenstein 