This installment: The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)
The pitchable element: my dad loves The Maltese Falcon. This also has Bogie as a P.I.
The length: 110 minutes (aka: almost 40 minutes shorter than Duck, You Sucker!
The verdict: I love this film. More so, even, than the first time. It’s not that surprising: like the Coen classic loosely based on it, it’s better appreciated once you stop trying to follow the plot. I still think The Maltese Falcon is a better, more focused film, and ultimately, it has more quotable one-liners, but the banter between Bogie and Bacall is simply staggering. The speed, how they play off each other, the palpable sexual tension… One scene, where Bacall calls the cops and Bogie stops her, wouldn’t be out of place in a screwball comedy, and a good one at that (I’ve embedded the scene after the jump, unfortunately, it’s colored in and with Dutch subtitles, so you’re better off just buying the DVD for 10 euri).
My crush on Bogie is no secret by now, of course. But this one’s truly among his best, and while his pulling on his earlobe incessantly gets a bit old after a while, you never doubt for a second that all these pretty girls would, in fact, come onto him.
I’m still not quite sure about the intricate details of the plot (reportedly, Chandler wasn’t either), but I do know this: it’s fun every step of the way.
