The Big Sleep:

It’s All About Bacall

 

 

            Throughout film history, movies have been made that were based on previously published books. In fact, one of the most popular and acclaimed movies of all time, Gone With the Wind, was based on Margaret Mitchell’s novel of the same name. When books are adapted into movies, sections of the book being adapted are often removed. This is due to a number of factors. In most cases, sections are cut due to time. After all, while there is no limit to how long a book can be, it is generally a good idea to make sure a movie clocks in at no longer than three hours. In some cases, though, sections of the book are removed due to their content. Finally, when movies are adapted into books, scenes and sometimes even whole characters from the book are often rewritten to suit the whims of the filmmakers. Such is the case with The Big Sleep.

            Before I read Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, and, in fact, before I even registered for this class, I had known for a long time of the existence of a movie called The Big Sleep. I knew the movie was adapted from the novel of the same name, and I knew the film starred Humphrey Bogart as Phillip Marlowe, and I knew the film had Lauren Bacall in it. I had seen on a television show that many people considered the plot of the movie difficult to follow, and that an alternate version of the movie also existed. However, that was all I knew. I did not know who Bacall played in the film. Of course, I knew Bogart played Marlowe, and as I read the book, I kept on hearing Marlowe’s dialogue uttered in Bogart’s voice. As I pictured the events of the book in my head, I pictured Marlowe looking just like Bogart did when he played Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. Aside from Marlowe, none of the characters in the book appeared in my head as movie stars. I had my own visions of the characters, sure, but I didn’t picture them as being played by a certain actor or actress. I assumed that, in the book, a lead female character would become apparent, and that was who Bacall would play in the film. As I read the book, I discovered that I was wrong. There were two female characters, Carmen Sternwood and Vivian Regan, who received about equal page time in the book, but neither one was exactly the female lead. There were a couple other female characters, including Agnes and Mrs. Eddie Mars, but it was obvious she was a supporting character. At the end of the book, I still had no idea who Bacall played in the film. Also, regardless of who Bacall did play, I figured that there would be no way any of the women’s roles could be large enough to justify giving Bacall co-star billing. Then I viewed the film version of The Big Sleep and discovered that I was wrong. Considerable liberties were taken in adapting the novel to the screen, and Bacall’s character, Vivian, had much more of a presence than she did in the novel. Of course, there are other differences between the book and the film that don’t involve Vivian. It’s just that the differences that do involve Vivian, when taken as a whole, are more prominent than the differences that don’t involve Vivian.

            The film starts out with Bogart, as Marlowe, arriving at the Sternwood mansion, to meet with General Sternwood (played by Charles Waldron). He bumps into Carmen (Martha Vickers), and they exchange dialogue that, while abridged, is almost identical to the dialogue from the same scene in the book. Marlowe proceeds to meet with the General, and, again, the scene is almost identical to its corresponding one in the book. So far, so good. The names have been kept the same, the characters’ personalities seem to have been kept the same, and even the scenes have been kept the same. Then the topic of Sean Regan comes up, and things begin to change. First of all, in the book, the character was named Rusty Regan, not Sean Regan. Also, while in both the book and the movie Regan is revealed to be a former bootlegger, his marital status has been changed in the film. In the book, Regan had been married to Vivian, and he ran out on her. In the film, he was just someone hired by the General. While the General had grown very fond of Regan in both the book and the movie, the General’s fondness rang truer in the book than it did in the movie. In the book, Regan was the General’s son-in-law, and the General readily accepted him into the family. In the movie, Regan had no familial bond to the General. While it is possible that the General would embrace Regan as a substitute for the son he never had, the fondness the General has for Regan just seems more believable in the novel, since, after all, Regan was his daughter’s husband. Alas, in the movie, the General and Regan have no familial relationship. Vivian was never married to Regan.

William Faulkner, who adapted The Big Sleep to the screen, probably removed the marital bond between Regan and Vivian so that Vivian would not be seen as a former bootlegger’s wife. Also gone in the movie is any mention of Vivian having been married three times, as there was in the book. In the movie, Vivian’s full name is Vivian Rutledge, and this implies she has been married before. However, the fact that her thrice-married status goes unmentioned in the movie, combined with the fact that, in the movie, she is no longer a former bootlegger’s wife, makes Vivian seem more wholesome than she appears in the book. Also, it sets up the future romance between Marlowe and Vivian, a romance that didn’t receive nearly as much emphasis in the book as it did in the film. Ultimately, making the character of Vivian more wholesome paves the way for more screen time for Lauren Bacall. However, the viewer, upon seeing The Big Sleep for the first time, doesn’t know this quite yet.

After the scene with the General, Marlowe begins to leave the Sternwood mansion, and the butler (Charles D. Brown) informs him that Vivian wants to see him. Marlowe goes to see her, and we, as the audience, get our first glimpse of Vivian. I must say that I think Bacall was perfect to play Vivian. She comes off as hard-boiled, which is just how I pictured Vivian while I was reading The Big Sleep. Bacall also has that husky voice, which complements her hard-boiled persona. Again, this is how I imagined Vivian to sound as I was reading the book. In the movie, it is quite clear that Vivian is Carmen’s older sister, just as it was in the book. While, on my first viewing of the film, I thought immediately that Bacall was perfectly cast as Vivian, I just wasn’t sure how Vivian’s character would justify Bacall being given co-star billing. There certainly isn’t any clue in this first meeting of Marlowe and Vivian, which follows fairly closely its corresponding scene in the book. While the hostility Vivian has for Marlowe isn’t as obvious as it was in the book, it’s still there. Marlowe leaves the same way as he does in the book, and even delivers the exact same line to the butler: “You made a mistake…[She] didn’t want to see me” (pg. 21). Of course, upon viewing of the complete film, it is clear that the hostility during that first meeting of Marlowe and Vivian sets up the future romance between the two. At the moment, though, I thought that Vivian’s character would be of the same importance in the movie as it was in the book. I was wrong, but I didn’t know that yet.

            As the film continues, it begins to stray more from the book. Oh, it still keeps faithful, for the most part, to the events in the book, but it isn’t as faithful as you might expect it to be. Also, as previously mentioned, the film strays from the book in scenes that don’t involve Vivian, as well as the ones that do. A good example of the former comes in the sequence where Marlowe goes to A.G. Geiger’s bookstore, to look for Geiger. Marlowe enters the bookstore having assumed the guise of a homosexual book collector. This is exactly what he did in the book. In fact, this is the only scene where Marlowe’s negative feelings towards homosexuals, which were fairly pronounced in the book, comes into play in the movie. Marlowe tries to see Geiger, but leaves when it becomes obvious Agnes (Sonia Darrin) won’t let Marlowe see him. Marlowe goes across the street, to another bookstore. Here is where the book and movie versions of The Big Sleep differ slightly. In the book, Marlowe asks the clerk in the bookstore, who is a woman, to describe Geiger for him. She does, and Marlowe leaves the bookstore and waits in his car for Geiger to emerge from his bookstore.

In the movie, though, things proceed a little differently. Marlowe still goes into the bookstore, and he still asks the clerk (Dorothy Malone) about Geiger. The clerk relays a description almost exactly identical to the one in the book, including his “Charlie Chan moustache” and the fact that he “affects a knowledge of antiques and hasn’t any” (pg. 29). Here, however, the clerk is probably the sexiest bookseller you’ll ever meet. Malone plays her part perfectly, and the scene is incredibly steamy. After the clerk tells Marlowe what Geiger looks like, Marlowe thinks about returning to his car, but opts not to. Instead, he decides to wait in the bookstore. The clerk closes up the shop, she has a drink with Marlowe, and then the two have a small fling. After the fling, the clerk notices Geiger leaving his store, and she tells Marlowe of it. Marlowe leaves, to follow Geiger, and the movie starts to follow the book again.

            At first, I wondered why the scene was in the movie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the scene itself. Malone was certainly easy on the eyes, and, as I said, the scene was incredibly steamy. However, the scene didn’t seem to have much point. Why, I wondered, didn’t Faulkner have Marlowe go out of the bookstore and wait in his car for Geiger, like he did in the book? After all, it didn’t seem like a very difficult sequence to film. Only upon viewing the complete film did I realize why Faulkner had written that scene. In the book, Marlowe and women didn’t seem to mix. In fact, at one point, he even said, “Women made me sick” (pg. 159). Now, he wasn’t homosexual or anything; he just didn’t seem to have much use for women. However, in order to justify Marlowe’s future romance with Vivian in the film, Faulkner wrote the scene with the clerk in the bookstore to show that Marlowe was indeed attracted to women.

            Marlowe follows Geiger’s car, just as he does in the book, and waits outside Geiger’s house. Marlowe waits for a long time for something to happen, and, of course, eventually something does. Upon hearing a gunshot, Marlowe races up to the house, then pauses as he hears footsteps running down some back stairs. He sees a car drive away, and another car following it. In the book, Marlowe only thinks he hears a second car, but in the movie, he clearly sees a second one. Marlowe enters the house to find a dead body on the floor, which he quickly identifies as Geiger. He then sees Carmen, in a drug-induced catatonic state. In the book, Carmen was naked, but, of course, the Hayes production code wouldn’t allow her to be naked in the film (which is the same reason she appears clothed later on in the film when she is in Marlowe’s apartment). Instead, she was scantily clad in a Chinese dress. Marlowe slaps her around a bit, just as he does in the book, to try to get her to talk. He doesn’t have much success, so he lays Carmen down on the sofa and does some investigating. He quickly discovers that Geiger was practicing the old camera-in-the-statue’s-head trick (although in the book the camera was hidden behind a totem pole-like object), and that the camera no longer had film in it. Marlowe figures that Geiger was taking candid pictures of Carmen, and that the film disappeared along with whoever killed Geiger. Marlowe takes Carmen back to the Sternwood mansion, and it is here that another instance of the character of Vivian being changed occurs.

            In the book, Marlowe asks the butler if Vivian is about. The butler says she is not, and Marlowe has the maid, Mathilda, help Carmen to bed, since the job “needs the woman’s touch” (pg. 40). In the movie, this “woman’s touch” is supplied by none other than Vivian herself. Marlowe helps Vivian put Carmen to bed (in the book, he let Mathilda handle the matter all by herself), and they talk. The scene isn’t entirely worthless in regards to the development of the overall plot (Vivian inadvertently reveals that there is—or was—some connection between Carmen and Regan), but the ultimate point of the scene, I think, is to further build up Vivian’s character. In the scene where she lays Carmen to bed, Vivian is revealed to be very protective of her sister. While this is implied in the book, it is never mentioned as strongly as it is in the book. This, like removing the marital bond between Vivian and Regan, makes Vivian seem nicer and more wholesome than she appears in the book. Moreover, the scene, by helping to boost Vivian’s presence in the film, also boosts Bacall’s presence in the film. This is another scene that features Bogart and Bacall sharing the screen together. There is a reason why there are so many scenes of Marlowe and Vivian interacting in the film. Bogart and Bacall began a real-life courtship while The Big Sleep was being filmed, and the sparks they shared were captured on screen. That is the primary reason why this scene was included, and why there are so many scenes of Marlowe and Vivian yet to come in The Big Sleep. Bogart and Bacall had some incredible chemistry.

            The next day arrives, and here events in the movie fall out of sequence, at least as far as their sequence in the book were concerned. In the book, Marlowe goes to Geiger’s bookstore, again in the guise of a homosexual, and asks Agnes if he could see Geiger, even though he knows full well that Geiger is dead (even if he can’t locate the body). Marlowe then gets in a cab and has the cab tail a truck that is delivering some of Geiger’s old things. Marlowe discovers that the items are being taken to Joe Brody’s apartment. After learning this, Marlowe returns to his office, where he finds Vivian waiting for him. In the book, this is Marlowe’s first scene with Vivian since he met her when he initially met in the Sternwood mansion to meet with the General. Of course, this is not the case in the film. Neither, for that matter, is the sequence I just described, at least, not in its chronological order, anyway.

            In the movie, the scene where Vivian arrives at Marlowe’s office is shown before the scene with Marlowe going to the bookstore. This isn’t the only change. Yes, the dialogue in the scene pretty much follows that of its corresponding scene in the book, such as when Vivian says, “I was beginning to think perhaps you worked in bed, like Marcel Proust” (pg. 55). However, there is some added business in the movie, such as when Vivian scratches her knee. After the scene with Vivian and Marlowe, the scene with Marlowe going to the bookstore and then following the truck to Joe Brody’s place is shown. The reason the sequences may have been shown out of place may have been to make Vivian’s comments about Marlowe’s sleeping habits seem more in place, or they also may have been to capitalize on Bogart and Bacall’s chemistry.

            The chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, and the desire to drive the point home that Vivian is a nice character, probably contributed to the addition of Vivian in the scene with Marlowe, Brody (Louis Jean Heydt), Agnes, and, eventually, Carmen in Brody’s apartment. While the events transpired pretty much the way they did in the book (except for the fact that the gunfight with Carmen was more extended in the book), Vivian’s presence in the scene was, in my opinion, totally unnecessary. Luckily, she left the scene pretty quickly, as she took Carmen home. In the book, Carmen went home by herself.

            The next scene that Vivian is involved in that she wasn’t involved in in the book is when she gives Marlowe a check from the General for a job well done. Oh, Marlowe gets paid in the book, too, but it is the butler who delivers the payment, and not Vivian. In the film, after Vivian delivers the payment, she and Marlowe have a conversation, ostensibly about horses, that is laden with double entendres. Incidentally, this scene did not exist in the original version of the film. After the film was test-screened in 1945, this scene was added to capitalize on the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, who were, by that time, already married.

            Vivian’s next big scene comes in Eddie Mars’ (John Ridgely) casino. In the book, Vivian seems much more standoffish here than she does in the film. Also, in the film, she invites Marlowe over, and asks him to drive her home. This is something that simply did not happen in the book. In fact, in the book, I got the impression that Vivian didn’t even know that Marlowe was there, at least not until she was outside the casino, when she got held up. By the way, that scene still remains in the movie, except for the fact that Vivian knew Marlowe was there in the movie, and I don’t think she did in the book.

            Of course, the biggest instance of Vivian being in a scene where she didn’t originally belong comes towards the end, where Marlowe is in the garage and is beaten up. When he comes to, Mrs. Mars (Peggy Knudsen) is in the room with him, but so is Vivian. In the book, Vivian wasn’t there. In the movie, though, she was, and when Mrs. Mars leaves, Vivian essentially assumes the role of Mrs. Mars, as she does all the things that Mrs. Mars originally did. Marlowe even says the same things to Vivian that he originally did to Mrs. Mars, such as the wonderful line, “[He’ll] beat my teeth out and then kick me in the stomach for mumbling” (pg. 194). There is not a doubt in my mind as to why Faulkner substituted Vivian for Mrs. Mars. As I’ve said before, the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall was simply phenomenal.

The chemistry between the two was so strong that it is probably why the last scene in the movie, where Marlowe and Vivian go to Geiger’s to set up a meeting with Mars, is completely different from the last scene in the book. The only part that remains the same is the fact that Carmen killed Regan and Mars has been blackmailing Vivian with that knowledge. Everything else, though, is changed. Ultimately, in the movie, Mars is killed, and Carmen is sent to a drug therapy clinic/mental institution (thereby concurring with another aspect of the Hayes code, which said all criminals must get their due). Most importantly, it is implied that Marlowe and Vivian go off and live a happy life together. There are a lot of changes between the book The Big Sleep and the movie of the same name. Most of these changes can be attributed to the two co-stars of the film. Even with the changes (as unnecessary as some may be), The Big Sleep is still a very good film. I liked the book better, because the characters and events seemed more realistic, and Chandler didn’t seem to be bending over backwards to fit Vivian into the story. However, the casting of Lauren Bacall as Vivian in the film, to Humphrey Bogart’s Marlowe, meant a much larger role for Vivian, and justifiably so.