Watch The Big Sleep For Free

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Sadly Over-hyped

As Good As It Gets

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

"The Big Sleep", re-located from 1940s Los Angeles to 1970s Britain. An impeccable cast cannot overcome the fact that this is really a rather lackluster production. It is not that this is a bad film. It is simply that, despite the color cinematography, this version comes off as pale and bland in comparison with Howard Hawk's superb black-and-white 1946 version.

A strange creature is Michael Winner...Has he been secretly mocking the 'industry' he works in for the past fifty years? Or is he just a pompous old fool who couldn't make a public information film? Perhaps no one will ever know!The big sleep however, is one of Winner's better films. Largely due to a great script (he adheres closely to the book despite the film being set in England) and the superb acting of Robert Mitchum. The best bit in the film is watching Mitchum and a comely Joan Collins rolling around on the carpet; After taking her pistol, a dishevelled Mitchum looks on whilst Collins lets out an orgasmic sign and then lights a ciggy, great stuff!

Big Sleep, The (1978) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is asked by General Sternwood (James Stewart) to track down a blackmailer who is using his daughters (Sarah Miles, Candy Clark) but after the blackmailer is found murdered the private detective finds a whole string of people who seem to be keeping one secret after another. THE BIG SLEEP certainly doesn't come close to the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall film but at the same time it's somewhat unfair to judge the two especially when you consider that this version was a lot closer to the original novel and features stuff that couldn't even be hinted at in the 1947 version. The basic plot how a lot of perversion as we're dealing with one sister (Clark) who is certainly a sexual pervert and someone who is taken nude photos, which sets off the entire blackmailing. Teenage pornography is one of the many subplots as a wide range of characters come in and out of the story. For the most part I enjoyed this version but I think what really kept it from being a good movie is the rather lackluster direction by Winner who just doesn't seem to know what to do with the material. There are far too many scenes that contain no suspense, no tension and even worse is that some of the action scenes come across as some sort of bored after thought. There are a couple different scenes where Marlowe finds himself in some sort of struggle yet they're all filmed rather poorly and end up going no where. I'm not expecting some sort of masterpiece but the director should have at least worked the mystery a tad bit more but sadly there's very little energy or emotion to be found. I will admit that the story here is much better than the original movie as Marlowe and Mitchum seem perfectly well suited for the material. There are several scenes where the sisters come onto Mitchum and that laid back approach of his is perfectly done and there never was a better acting at playing this type of detective. Mitchum is clearly having fun with the role and he certainly helps keep the film moving. Stewart only has a couple small scenes but it's always nice to see him and the stuff with Mitchum was a lot of fun because the two legends are clearly having fun working together. Both Miles and Clark are good in their roles and we get nice supporting work from Richard Boone, Richard Todd, Joan Collins and Oliver Reed. This film certainly earns its R-rating as Clark is nude in pretty much each of her scenes here and the dirty nature of the pornography certainly sets the film apart from the original. The film had its setting changed to London, which is somewhat of a letdown as L.A. would have been much better but overall THE BIG SLEEP is a fairly rewarding picture but one only wishes the director had done a better job.

Winner's version is more faithful to the story than the mess served up in 1946 by Hawkes, Bogart and Bacall. The switch to England is okay - maybe could have done more interesting things with it. Not sure about the switch of era. But both movies fail to use the two major characters in the story: Rusty Regan (who never appears) and Carmen Sternwood, who is pure evil. This version really tries to stick with the structure of Chandler's story, instead of whoring it out to the star names, but nobody has captured the evil and the sense of futility that Chandler wrote about. Marlowe's character dominates the drama, along with whichever actress is chosen for Bacall's original part - but he's just the wise-cracking narrator, an observer, and she's a bit-player! Cast Carmen properly, and then we'll see.