From The Rageaholic/Razörfist’s YouTube description: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in what Raymond Chandler considered the definitive movie Marlowe: The Big Sleep!
Tag Archives: Howard Hawks
Film Review: To Have and Have Not (1944)
Also known as: Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not (complete title)
Release Date: October 11th, 1944 (New York City premiere)
Directed by: Howard Hawks
Written by: Jules Furthman, William Faulkner
Based on: To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
Music by: William Lava, Franz Waxman
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael
Warner Bros., 100 Minutes
Review:
“Drinking don’t bother my memory. If it did I wouldn’t drink. I couldn’t. You see, I’d forget how good it was, then where’d I be? Start drinkin’ water, again.” – Eddie
I don’t know what it was about the pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall but all four of their movies are absolute classics. This one is no different and it’s the last one for me to review.
But maybe their chemistry was just infectious. They ended up married in real life and their passion just comes through every time you see them together, even as just fictional characters.
However, a lot of the greatness of these films can just be because the star was Bogart and at this point in his career, he was on top of the world. His pictures got the best directors, the best scripts and usually a pretty strong budget. His films really encapsulate what Hollywood was in his era.
I really like the story in this one though and it has some strong similarities to the setting and tone of Key Largo.
This takes place on a different island, however. The film is set on Martinique but it has a similar ’40s tropical island ambiance that gives the picture a somewhat magical quality.
The story is about an American boat captain that helps transport a French Resistance leader and his wife. It’s set during World War II, which plays a lot into the plot and the film’s political climate. Also, between all of this, the boat captain tries to romance a lounge singer he meets while on the island.
Overall, the plot was really good but everything is greatly enhanced by the performances of Bogart and Bacall. But a lot of credit should also go to director Howard Hawks, who has made some real cinematic magic in his day, this just being just one of his many great pictures.
To Have and Have Not also boasts some stellar cinematography from Sidney Hickox, whose resume is longer than a cross country drive on a moped.
Everything just looks and feels majestic and wonderful in this picture. While not a pillar of perfection, it should definitely sit pretty high up on anyone’s list of best classic film-noir pictures.
Rating: 9/10
Pairs well with: the other films that team up Bograt and Bacall, most notably Key Largo.
Film Review: The Thing From Another World (1951)
Release Date: April 6th, 1951 (Cincinnati, Washington D.C. premiere)
Directed by: Christian Nyby
Written by: Charles Lederer, Howard Hawks (uncredited), Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Based on: Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr.
Music by: Dimitri Tiomkin
Cast: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Douglas Spencer, Robert O. Cornthwaite, James Arness
Winchester Pictures Corporation, RKO Radio Pictures, 87 Minutes
Review:
“So few people can boast that they’ve lost a flying saucer and a man from Mars – all in the same day! Wonder what they’d have done to Columbus if he’d discovered America, and then mislaid it.” – Ned “Scotty” Scott
This film would eventually be remade in 1982 as one of the greatest horror pictures ever made: John Carpenter’s The Thing. That is a movie that is in my personal Holy Trinity of Horror. This original version isn’t as good as the ’80s one but it is still a better than decent horror picture for its time.
The Thing From Another World was produced by the legendary Howard Hawks and put out by RKO Radio Pictures, who were mostly known for their plethora of film-noir movies. They did dabble in horror too and before this, put out some solid horror films under their in-house horror maestro Val Lewton. I’ve reviewed a lot of the Val Lewton produced horror films at RKO already. This came out after the Lewton era and isn’t as good as those films but it still kept the horror bug alive for RKO.
This version of the story is pretty different than the remake. It takes place in a similar location but it’s near the North Pole as opposed to Antarctica. Also, it isn’t as confined. Plus, there is a woman present, where the remake was a bunch of rugged manly men. The biggest difference however, is that this film just has a humanoid alien where the remake had an alien that was infinitely more terrifying and near impossible to detect until it was too late. Here, we have a hulking brute carrying a big stick: think Frankenstein’s monster cosplaying poorly as Theodore Roosevelt.
Regardless of a pretty straightforward alien killer, this film is still effective. The creature had a brooding presence, was rather large and looked cool for a ’50s film.
Compared to the other similar alien invasion type films of the decade, this one would be almost forgettable if it weren’t for the legendary remake. Yes, this is good. Yes, I like it. But I don’t think it is better than Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Rating: 6.75/10
Pairs well with: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), War of the Worlds (1953), Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
Film Review: The Big Sleep (1946)
Release Date: August 23rd, 1946
Directed by: Howard Hawks
Written by: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman
Based on: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Music by: Max Steiner
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone, Elisha Cook Jr.
Warner Bros., 114 Minutes, 116 Minutes (pre-release)
Review:
“And I’m not crazy about yours. I didn’t ask to see you. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners, I don’t like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don’t mind your ritzing me drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don’t waste your time trying to cross-examine me.” – Philip Marlowe
There are few women that can match the presence of Humphrey Bogart on screen but I guess there is a reason why Lauren Bacall was in four pictures with Bogie and why they fell in love and got married, despite quite the age difference.
This is one of many Philip Marlowe stories put to celluloid in the 1940s. Strangely, a different actor played Marlowe in every movie as there wasn’t any sort of cohesiveness to the rights of the character. Different studios owned the rights to different books and some Marlowe movies even changed the character’s name to things like “The Falcon” and “Michael Shayne”. In The Big Sleep, we get to see Bogart become the character in what is arguably the best and most popular version of Marlowe.
Like typical film-noir and a Marlowe story, for that matter, this thing has a lot of solid twists and turns. You never really know where the roller coaster ride is going but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. In a nutshell, private dick Philip Marlowe is hired by a rich general with two beautiful daughters. One daughter has massive gambling debts, so Marlowe is brought in to help resolve this. The older sister, played by Lauren Bacall, assists Marlowe because she knows that the situation her little sister is in, is something bigger and deeper than what’s on the surface.
The Big Sleep is very complex and while it may, to a degree, work against it and make it hard to follow if you’re not completely tuned into it, it’s still well constructed and executed. I’m not sure how faithful of an adaptation it is to the book but it probably did its best in giving that story its life on screen. Complex stories are usually a bit easier to follow in a book than on screen, as there is a different sort of pacing and you have to be engaged by the book, giving it your full attention. But this isn’t too dissimilar to most film-noir films adapted from the crime novels of the day.
Bogart and Bacall always had fantastic chemistry. This is a great display of just how good each of them were and especially how good they were playing opposite of one another. Bogart is his typical cool self and Bacall has a serious sass that isn’t something most women can match.
Howard Hawks made one of the best Philip Marlowe pictures of all-time with The Big Sleep. It was probably easy directing the duo of Bogart and Bacall, however. Plus, he had the cinematography of Sidney Hickox at his disposal. Hickox being a real veteran with a lot of mileage under his belt at this point.
Rating: 9/10
Talking Pulp 
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