THE BIG SLEEP
Raymond Chandler is one of two authors whose stories enraptured me when I discovered them in my teens (the other being Philip K Dick). I think ‘The Big Sleep’ was probably the first of his novels that I read. This adaptation is very fine although the ending has been changed to make it more dramatic and to provide a happy conclusion to the romance between Marlowe and Vivian (there is no such romance in the novel, just some sexual tension). This film has a reputation for having an impenetrable plot. I beg to differ, although it's true I have the advantage of having both read the novel and watched the film several times. It struck me on this latest viewing that there are really two plots, the one concerning Geiger that is at the forefront in the first half and the one concerning Regan that is the focus of the second half. In writing the novel Chandler cannibalised two short stories he had already had published, and I dare say they correspond to these two plots. The ...