Not reviewed at press time. Discovered and restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, this is the original pre-release version of one of the most beloved American film classics, The Big Sleep, directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The 1946 release version of the Philip Marlowe private-eye story (adapted from Raymond Chandler’s first novel by screenwriters Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, and William Faulkner) is the one we’re all still familiar with today. However, there existed an earlier version of the film which was completed in 1945 and retooled after a combination of some disastrous test screenings and various historical exigencies. One primary motivator was the enormous success experienced by 1944’s To Have and Have Not, the first screen pairing of Bogart and Bacall (the one in which she reminds him how to whistle). In the pre-release version of The Big Sleep, Bacall’s role was of a more secondary nature, and the re-shoots were intended to beef up her part to capitalize on the now-famous Bogart-Bacall chemistry. Missing from the original version are some of the scenes for which the film is best remembered: the conversation that intertwines horse racing metaphors with sexual innuendoes (“it depends on who’s in the saddle” kind of stuff); another double entendre scene between Marlowe and Vivian (Bacall) that occurs in her bedroom when he returns the wayward Carmen home to the Sternwood mansion, and one that occurs in Marlowe’s office as they playfully trade off phone quips. In 1945, the Warner Bros. executives also recognized that the war was winding down and that it was in their interests to hustle into distribution all their war-related film product, which included a movie, Confidential Agent, that Bacall filmed following The Big Sleep. When the re-shooting was finished, an additional 18 minutes of new footage was added and 20 minutes were removed from the year-old original. One casualty of the re-shooting may have been a long explanatory scene between Marlowe and the D.A. in which they review all the murders that occurred up to that point — a scene which may or may not help clarify one of the most notoriously indecipherable plots in the history of cinema. (Amazingly, this lack of clarity has never in the least marred the brilliance or intuitive logic that guides The Big Sleep). This screening of the original film is accompanied by a comparison reel that illustrates the differences between the two versions. While it seems likely that the final release version of The Big Sleep deserves to be the best remembered of the pair, this restored pre-release version is certain to be educational and enlightening and an enduring testament to the rewards of film preservation.
This article appears in June 6 • 1997 (Cover).
