This version of The Big Sleep is the classic reason why you don't remake a classic. Funny thing is that Robert Mitchum got deserved plaudits for what he did in remaking Farewell My Lovely a few years earlier.
As Monk would say, here's the thing. A masterful job was done in keeping the story within it's 1940s milieu. Except for some things that couldn't be in the film because of the Code and the color photography, Farewell My Lovely could have been shot side by side with the Dick Powell Murder My Sweet. Raymond Chandler's noir world of the forties was recreated brilliantly.
So who was the genius who thought to age Marlowe thirty years and bring him into the swinging seventies of London? Sherlock Holmes was brought to Washington, DC for a war time propaganda piece to the dismay of all Holmes purists. Chandler purists were similarly affronted here.
Sad because a really great cast was wasted in this. One thing I'm sure the audience must have felt is how the American expatriate general played by James Stewart could have one English accented daughter in Sarah Miles and an American accented one in Candy Clark? I'm still scratching my head over that one. English gangster/gambler Oliver Reed employs an American hit man on retainer in Richard Boone. Another puzzle.
It was nice however to see Robert Mitchum and James Stewart in the one and only film they made together. Stewart's only scenes in the film are with Mitchum and when the two Hollywood icons died in successive days in 1997 clips from The Big Sleep were running for a week.
I don't need to give any plot details for those who've seen the fabulous Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall version. If you want to stargaze, watch this film, if you want to see some classic performances don't miss the Bogart one.
As Monk would say, here's the thing. A masterful job was done in keeping the story within it's 1940s milieu. Except for some things that couldn't be in the film because of the Code and the color photography, Farewell My Lovely could have been shot side by side with the Dick Powell Murder My Sweet. Raymond Chandler's noir world of the forties was recreated brilliantly.
So who was the genius who thought to age Marlowe thirty years and bring him into the swinging seventies of London? Sherlock Holmes was brought to Washington, DC for a war time propaganda piece to the dismay of all Holmes purists. Chandler purists were similarly affronted here.
Sad because a really great cast was wasted in this. One thing I'm sure the audience must have felt is how the American expatriate general played by James Stewart could have one English accented daughter in Sarah Miles and an American accented one in Candy Clark? I'm still scratching my head over that one. English gangster/gambler Oliver Reed employs an American hit man on retainer in Richard Boone. Another puzzle.
It was nice however to see Robert Mitchum and James Stewart in the one and only film they made together. Stewart's only scenes in the film are with Mitchum and when the two Hollywood icons died in successive days in 1997 clips from The Big Sleep were running for a week.
I don't need to give any plot details for those who've seen the fabulous Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall version. If you want to stargaze, watch this film, if you want to see some classic performances don't miss the Bogart one.