The Big Sleep

For my money, The Big Sleep (1946) is the best detective thriller ever made. Let's forget, for the moment, that the plot is at times incomprehensible (more on that later). It's the film's shadowy stylishness and gaudy L.A. decadence--a sort of bowdlerized decadence, emblematic of Hollywood's most conservative era, when everything taboo had to be referred to in code--that makes The Big Sleep an explosive, hugely entertaining movie. Of course, it's the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart--as the hardboiled private eye Philip Marlowe--and Lauren Bacall--as the spoiled socialite whose father hires Marlowe to protect his other daughter from a blackmailer--that turns The Big Sleep into more than a thriller. This was their second film together (after 1944's To Have and Have Not), and by the time it was released, Lauren Bacall was Mrs. Humphrey Bogart.

The plot has so many confused threads that trying to figure it out is a fool's errand. As the famous behind-the-scenes legend goes, nobody (including the film's three scenarists, Jules Furthman, Leigh Brackett, and William Faulkner) could figure out who was responsible for one of the film's murders, and even Raymond Chandler, on whose novel this film was based, was stumped when consulted about the matter. Nobody minded much, because The Big Sleep was too much fun to concern itself with the dreary demands of a lucid plot. (I'll be the first to carp when a movie is deliberately convoluted, but in this case, the confusion seems to further this film's dreamlike mood: it's the most entrancing of the 1940's film noirs.)

The DVD comes with two versions of the film: the 1946 theatrical release, and the 1945 pre-release, which was shown overseas to American soldiers. The studio heads called for a number of significant changes after the film was initially completed and shown overseas--including the addition of several more scenes with Bogie and Bacall, cashing in on their considerable spark--and these changes, most agree, improved the film.

Directed by the great Howard Hawks. With John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Peggy Knudsen, Regis Toomey, Charles Waldron, Charles D. Brown, Bob Steele, Sonia Darrin (uncredited), Elisha Cook, Louis Jean Heydt, and Dorothy Malone. Remade in 1975 with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. 116 min. ★★★★

The Walker

The Walker (2007) stars Woody Harrelson as Carter Page III, a male escort living in D.C. who becomes mixed up in a murder investigation. The corpse--who was a lobbyist--was having an affair with Harrelson's married friend (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose husband is a politician. The movie opens with Carter playing Canasta with Thomas and two other friends, played by Lily Tomlin and Lauren Bacall (more on them later). The weekly card game is merely an excuse for the four of them to gossip about all the latest D.C. social scandals, since all of them are connected to government one way or another. Tomlin's character is married to another political player (Ned Beatty).

Carter's father was a career politician, and he's been living under the man's shadow all his life. The son is gay, hardly a badge of honor in the South, particularly for the son of a Southern politician. He's spent his whole life speaking in superficialities and living his life on the surface of things. He seems to read people's aspersions on him even before they do, and as such he's become extremely guarded. He uses his quick wit as self-defense.

The very idea of a character like Carter Page is like really bad, ultra-cornball Tennessee Williams. Harrelson hails from Texas, and the accent we're used to hearing from him is, I think, natural enough for this movie's purposes. But the twangy Mississippi drawl he adorns in The Walker is too much. It's an irritant, and it gets in the way of his performance. The director, Paul Schrader, may have been wanting it to serve Carter's character and be a reminder to us that he's from the Deep South. Going back to the Tennessee Williams connection, perhaps it makes the drama more dramatic in the director's mind. What's always interesting about Tennessee Williams, though, is the monumental state of denial in which his characters steep themselves. In The Walker, it's not so much denial but acceptance. Carter is a realist, and he's doing what's necessary to survive in the current social and political climate.

What's most striking about this movie is probably the presence of Lauren Bacall. She was always a pistol, and at nearly 83 (in 2007), she's still got it. She has such a knowing ease in front of the camera that you just sit back and enjoy her. She plays the part with relish, and you always feel as though there's much beneath the surface that's not being said. Yet it translates tacitly because she's such a good actress. Lily Tomlin is also good, but then again she's a pro too, just not quite as long in the tooth as Bacall. Kristin Scott Thomas plays the undersexed politician's wife with poise and dignity, but perhaps not enough curiosity or warmth to make her character very sympathetic. She's the one Carter is trying to protect, and she's not much of a friend.

Woody Harrelson is a good actor, but I just can't get behind that accent. It's not a bad accent per se, but it's so thick that it just spills over the top like foam, rushing over and eventually engulfing the character, and if this were Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that would be suitable (though hysterically funny). But then it's not Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Other characters in the movie have these pet Deep South accents, too. Granted, there are plenty of Southerners in D.C., but the movie not only borrows the accents of the Deep South but the ultra-ring-wing political demeanor too, and uses this to make Carter's homosexuality an issue. It's as if the director, Schrader, wants this to be the gay version of In the Heat of the Night, but he's not willing to go far enough for that. And in the process of trying to be subtle in what the film says, it says very little, except something we've already heard before: Carter can't measure up to his father, and he's been trying to impress him even though his dad's been dead for ten years. Well, okay. What now?

The Walker has moments of tingling excitement, like when Carter's boyfriend (Moritz Bleibtreu) is accosted by a goon at a bar and beaten up pretty roughly. That scene comes almost out of nowhere, because the film is going at a pretty slow pace. Schrader must have decided it was time to wake up the audience at that point in the movie. There's also an obligatory sense of dread you get from watching this kind of movie. It reminded me of The Ghost Writer (2010) in some ways. Both movies have a certain chilling banality to them. And The Walker isn't entirely unsuccessful, but it feels slight, and it also strikes me as a disappointment that Harrelson denies the best aspects of his persona and his acting talent in order to pursue a more "serious" role. He has a natural streak of comedic insanity that he suppresses here. In The Walker, he's like a macho Truman Capote. He's trying to outwit you with his charming good looks and his sly too-clever cleverness. Still, it could have been worse.

Harper

Harper (1966) is a self-consciously chic, sophisticated and cool detective thriller starring Paul Newman as a private eye named Lew Harper. Adapted by William Goldman from Ross Macdonald's novel The Moving Target, Harper is probably the best pure-detective-thriller of the 1960s (although Bullitt starring Steve McQueen is up there, too).



I have written before about film noir, which is possibly my favorite genre. Harper was part of the shift in detective movies and noir that took place in the 60's and 70's where a sort of deconstruction of the genre emerged. While film noir has always been cynical, I think the films became increasingly a comment on themselves. These men eat, drink and sleep their work. Somehow the glamour has been lost amidst the unkempt studio apartment and the worn-out convertible, a relic of the glory days but still a relic. Newman's character is a typical Hollywood private eye: a loner, compelled to figure out the case before him. He's hired to track down cold-hearted Lauren Bacall's missing millionaire-husband.

Bacall, of course, starred as Humphrey Bogart's cunning, brassy love interest in 1946's The Big Sleep. She comes full circle with the genre in Harper, fulfilling the part of the catalyst, the one who hires the detective, giving us the backstory on the case. Bacall's character is hardly at her wit's end with grief about her missing husband. "I only intend to outlive him," she assures Harper. "I only want to see him in his grave." And then, trying to narrate Harper's thoughts for him, she concludes: "What a terrible thing to say." Harper responds, "People in love will say anything."
That's how Harper addresses the world. He has a quip for every circumstance, taking his punches with a grin and a stubborn--sometimes futile--inability to quit. This of course mirrors several of Newman's other movie roles, most notably the title character in 1967's Cool Hand Luke and Fast Eddie Felson in 1961's The Hustler.

The look and feel of Harper is vital to the film's success. Conrad Hall--one of the most respected American cinematographers--does an impressive job of capturing the grandeur of the film's beautiful external California locations.



He also manages to capture the feel of 1960's swing culture. A good portion of the film takes place in bars and night clubs, where the movie's noirish roots meld with the zeitgeist of free love and aimlessness that pervaded the movies during the 60s.

Amidst all the offhand comments and the shootings and the innuendos you will find a somewhat distant but incredibly sad love story between Lew and his estranged wife, Susan (Janet Leigh).



Early in the film, Lew and Susan share an exchange by telephone where Lew tries to once again stall their divorce procedures, though it's unclear why exactly. Susan ends the conversation assuring Lew "I don't love you anymore. And you can get shot in some stinking alley and I'll be a little sorry, sure, but that's it. Just a little sorry." Later on, Lew comes knocking on Susan's door after a particularly rough fight with one of the bad guys, looking for someone to take care of him. There is a moment of hope that their relationship will not end. But Lew's compulsion soon returns--to finish the case. A compulsion that seems to drive a wedge between him and the rest of the world. A moral mission that excludes real human interaction.


Directed by Jack Smight. Also starring Julie Harris, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Arthur Hill, Shelley Winters, Robert Webber, Strother Martin and Harold Gould. Followed by The Drowning Pool (1975), which paired Newman with his wife, actress Joanne Woodward, in a lesser but still entertaining sequel. ★★★