The Big Sleep - The changes making the movie more sexy

The Big Sleep was released in 1946. It was finished in 1944. What changes did they make in those two years. Many people complain that the story is confusing. That's because they removed a key sequence that explains what's going on. What did they replace it with. A very memorable and sexy scene that is beloved by all, including people who still don't understand the plot of the movie. There are two sections in this segment. The first is from the original cut. That second sequence you will immediately recognize.
This sequence is 17 minutes long. There were some copyright concerns so KZbin trimmed it down to 9 minutes. Hopefully there is still some good stuff left.

[@raymondlang]

I gave up understanding the film about 30 minutes in, and just loved the acting of all the characters. Loved all the Martha Vickers scenes.

[@rocistone6570]

Martha Vickers part got cut down to make room for more Betty. Martha was NOT happy about it at all.

[@duncanrichardson2167]

Hardly surprising, even Raymond Chandler the author of the novel on which the film was based, did not understand the plot of the film.

[@ericw3229]

​@duncanrichardson2167 Not surprising since the movie left out so many key elements of the plot

[@rwarren58]

Okay! I wasn’t wrong in thinking it would be another’to have and have not’.

[@a11oge]

@@duncanrichardson2167 I was going to say that.

[@carsondelacroix8942]

Just saw this again in a theatre. I realized something. It is supposed to be confusing. Like real life. Everything is complicate. There are always loose ends. One of the greatest movies ever made. Boggies best by far.

[@sclogse1]

Check out The Good Thief with Nick Nolte and The Coca Cola Kid with Eric Roberts.

[@Bogie0315]

There is a DVD with both films the 1945 and 1946 versions and explainations. The gist of the 1946 film is they wanted Bacall role "beefed up" meaning more glamorous and they cut out most of what you saw in this video. I'll seen this film both versions and in many ways this 1945 explains more if that posable. Yes it's one of Bogie's best.

[@michaelersing4158]

I had a DVD of the first version, which I prefer. More of Faulkner’s (the screenwriter!) strange conversational poetry. Fast talking. Still, just as in the book- it is never revealed who offed the Owen character, who was in love with Vickers’ character whose performance is genuinely surreal - amazing.

[@michaelcarlson7575]

Owen is killed by Joe Brody to get the blackmail film of Carmen

[@kirk4086]

Have you read " Killer in the Rain" ?

[@MarceloCarmello-y8s]

Thank you seth wolf for the sequence! Very clarifying. A pity KZbin trimmed it down to 9 minutes.

[@robertgallagher5285]

In the novel Marlowe was more no nonsense in the second bookstore scene he just left after he got the description of Geigar in the movie he stayed and had some whiskey with the beautiful 😍 clerk good screenplay adding some romance like they wanted in the movies!!!!!

[@dr.barrycohn5461]

Bogart and Mary Astor were sheer genius in the Maltese Falcon. Of course in to have or have not bacall instructs bogart how to whistle by putting your lips together and blow.

[@a11oge]

Quote from WIKI "Midway through filming, Hawks and the cast realized that they did not know whether the chauffeur Owen Taylor had killed himself or was murdered. A cable was sent to Chandler, who told his friend Jamie Hamilton in a March 21, 1949 letter: "They sent me a wire ... asking me, and dammit I didn't know either".

[@artgonzalez8822]

They just don't make them like that no more

[@TerryUniGeezerPeterson]

The guy behind the desk is the guy who shot Little Caesar at the end of the 1930 classic.

[@davidcbr0wn]

Can tell this never got into the movie because there is no Max Steiner music.

[@stevenlord7793]

It's a very simple plot: Carmen kills Regan (backstory) Owen kills Geiger Brody kills Owen Carol kills Brody Canino kills Jones Marlow kills Canino Mar's boys kill Mars (Only 7 killers, what's the problem?)

[@stevenlord7793]

Mars' boys (that should have read)

[@mashk]

Does Brody kill Owen? It’s a bit ambiguous. Brody definitely knocks out Owen and steals Carmen’s photos. But it’s never clarified whether Owen commits suicide by driving his car into the sea or whether Brody does it. Brody always seemed to be in way over his head and not ruthless enough for the latter. Would Agnes be able to push around a killer?

[@crankyoldperson6871]

@@mashkI read an article today that claimed that the coroner contradicted the police’s initial cause of death at the scene of Owen Taylor’s death. Something to do with the blunt force bruising on the skull not being lethal. Implication is probable suicide, when he realised that he failed to protect Carmen, and was unable to prevent the scandalous photos of her being used for blackmail. 🤷‍♀️ 80 years later, and we’re still talking about it. That’s pretty cool stuff.

[@mercedyzmarieguion292]

Mr. Wilde police commissioner is the lieutenant who chased Edward G. Robinson in "Little Caesar ". He was good in LC.

[@stevekaczynski3793]

While it's interesting, I can see why they ditched most of this and re-arranged the last bit. Bacall wearing a veil seemed a bit odd, though perhaps it was meant as a sort of semi-disguise when entering the office of a private investigator.

[@antonyadshead965]

IIRC the thing that really changed it from the book was the change to the Bacall character that reduced her to a love interest and not the antagonist she was in the book.

[@stormyone]

Bogie drinks Brandy with Bacall but drinks rye with Malone?

[@LoranHarding]

She invites him for brandy. He says he likes brandy. She says she has lots of it. Man, that is clever dialog. They didn't mean brandy, but it sounded close.

[@LoranHarding]

@@ericrobson4291 WTF?--LH

[@michaelcarlson7575]

Brandy is classier than rye. I thought it was funny Marlowe would walk around with a glass half pint of rye in his pocket.

[@stormyone]

Marlowe says “pretty good rye”. Better than standard rye? Anyway, Marlowe must have been a Boyscout - “Be prepared”. No better example.

[@NancyFreire-dv4pi]

Pork chops and apple sauce 😊

[@rocistone6570]

The re-shoots to accent Betty and Bogie work a lot better. As to this boring slideshow, most of this information is in the better version of the movie we know today. Overall, this footage has a bad case of "Tell don't show" which is both boring and fatal to most stories, but uniquely fatal to who-done-its. This is slow, and ponderous in spots. That other cop in the DA's office (Cronyeger) is strictly out of central casting. Bernie didn't need a pigeon that badly. Cronyeger came across like a buzzard. Howard Hawks made a good call. More Betty, fewer rooms full of guys yaking it up to tell us a story we never see. Thanks for letting people see why the second version was and still is so much better.

[@jimgallagher2979]

Interesting that Hawks himself fell in love with Bacall. She was just a kid but grew up fast with the crowd she was running with.

[@eFMe-fk1xh]

Yes, the cut version was better, Hawks knew how the tell a dry and entertaining story better than anyone. Characters and fun above all. It was typical of the classic Hollywood but especially Hawks: he didn't care if the movie missed something, the only question he asked is "Is it entertaining?", because at the end of the movie that's what counts in a viewer's mind. And after all these decades we are still here celebrating this movie exactly as Hawks wanted: "The plot was confusing... but it was perfectly noir and incredibly fun!".

[@us-Bahn]

More or less the whole movie is told. You rarely see anything happen.

[@a11oge]

To quote WIKI "Film critic Roger Ebert, who described the movie as being about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its results", preferred the 1946 version and said. ' The new scenes [of the 1946 version] add a charge to the film that was missing in the 1945 version; this is a case where "studio interference" was exactly the right thing. The only reason to see the earlier version is to go behind the scenes, to learn how the tone and impact of a movie can be altered with just a few scenes... As for the 1946 version that we have been watching all of these years, it is one of the great films noir, a black-and-white symphony that exactly reproduces Chandler's ability, on the page, to find a tone of voice that keeps its distance, and yet is wry and humorous and cares."

[@rocistone6570]

@@a11oge I'm shaky on the "Not the results" part. Enough happens to enough bad people that they may not face a judge but get what's coming to them. And enough people on the other side get enough help and rewards along the way to make it all worthwhile. Carmen goes to a head shrinker, which is the best outcome she could hope for given what she has done. The old General gets what he wants: more stability in his family, but at a price. Jones' death is avenged. What Our two stars get-- I'll leave that to your imagination. There really is enough of an ending there if you can pick up the threads, The problem with most "Who-duunit pictures is that people want to get spoonfed an ending, That comes from the detectives of literature, Sherlock Holmes and Charlie Chan (Not a knock by any means) But in the "Noir" (Real) world, things are seldom as clean as all that. Justice as an ending sometimes has a murky side.

[@terenzo50]

This was the original which was cut (the DA scene) and reshot (Bacall visits Marlowe). My personal preference is to keep the DA scene as is, but use the reshot scene with Bacall where they meet at a bar and have a drink -- even though there's a glaring error of continuity in it.

[@ericw3229]

The scene should have been left in

[@stevekaczynski3793]

Shorthand work going to waste... Not sure if it was Gregg or Pitman...

[@notleonard]

Well the film cuts the fact that Geiger was gay and that his relationship explains the plot of the first half of the book/film. In the film someone says, "but what was his motive!?" and marlowe says something like, "check his gun, the bullets match! you don't need a motive." Marlowe drops a couple of nasty homophobic f-bombs in the book as he explains it. Hardly "sexy." But it is built into the structure of the story. Take the homosexuality out and the plot doesn't make any sense.

[@odysseusprodromou3260]

The 'plot' is Sternwood hires Marlowe to put an end to Geiger's attempt to blackmail him. The homosexuality is incidental but part of the narrative, a labyrinthine narrative that uncovers murder, corruption, the racketeering involving pornography & gambling & narcotics, nymphomania, alcoholism and murder...in short, a film noir narrative...

[@katharineofarrogant7805]

That is so helpful. Mustve watched this 100 times but hadnt read the book !Thank you!

[@notleonard]

@@katharineofarrogant7805 definitely worth reading, I love his stuff and also the work of Jim Thompson....really anything in that genre

[@katharineofarrogant7805]

@Josh Platt I shall read it and check out your other recommendation. Thanks!

[@michaelcarlson7575]

It's pretty obvious. "Carol" kills Brody for revenge thinking Joe killed Geiger.

[@sclogse1]

Who ever came up with a face net especially for young gals?

[@thomassaehler9038]

Blonde wife...is there a brunette wife?

[@billthestinker]

Marlowe is bisexual

[@Retroscoop]

Some nicknames are really spot on

[@crivket1233]

You keep wishing !!!!

[@philash1000]

Nah a Sigma male ...who knows the dames are flawed ...who eventually crave Marlowe's invitation to the path of righteousness....but cannot meet his exacting demands and standards ....and so his search goes on ......personally I d go back to the book store....for Dorothy ❤

[@JarJarBinks4ever]

Read The Big Sleep and think again

[@plasticweapon]

well, you're not bisexual bill. you're gay.

[@shauny2285]

I wonder if they still teach shorthand? Cheers!

[@stevekaczynski3793]

I learned a different type (Teeline) years ago and have resumed practising it since it got rusty.