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HUMPHREY BOGART WITH LAUREN BACALL IN 'THE BIG SLEEP'

Title: THE BIG SLEEP Year: 1946 Rating: ***1/2

One of the most important agendas director Howard Hawks had for Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP — following his breakthrough in HIGH SIERRA followed by THE MALTESE FALCON and CASABLANCA — was to not only sustain his snowballing stardom, but to make him a ravaging sex symbol...

Because every woman here wants him... needs him, even... from a sexy librarian, a sexier bookstore employee (Dorothy Malone)... and even a hot female cab driver gets his number, literally, for a possible nighttime tryst... 

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in THE BIG SLEEP

Yet Bogart's private eye Philip Marlowe — adapted from novelist Raymond Chandler — is far too busy after being hired by a rich old man blackmailed about his oldest, troublesome, party-girl daughter Martha Vickers... 

But what really works is youngest daughter Lauren Bacall's interest in why Marlowe was hired in the first place — more than adding to the perpetually twisting maze that always occurs when the audience knows as much... and as little... as the investigating gumshoe...

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in THE BIG SLEEP

Who gets so far over his head with tons of last-names spouted in all directions, from or about characters either coming out of the woodwork or already dead, THE BIG SLEEP reaches a point that feels like the third-act wind-down less than halfway through, needing far more of what Lauren Bacall brings to the intentionally cluttered table... 

She's a relaxing breath-of-fresh-air, even during all the running around that, while well-written, sublimely acted and economically directed, gets downright exhausting while Bacall, despite having secrets of her own, is the only thing that makes complete sense.

Humphrey Bogart and Martha Vickers in THE BIG SLEEP
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in THE BIG SLEEP
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in THE BIG SLEEP
Humphrey Bogart and Martha Vickers in THE BIG SLEEP
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in THE BIG SLEEP
Humphrey Bogart and Dorothy Malone in THE BIG SLEEP
Humphrey Bogart and Joy Barlow in THE BIG SLEEP

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