Warner Brothers Archives

Just a reminder that Warner Brothers is opening its archives! Fans will be able to purchase DV-Rs of obscure, previously unavailable Warners' films (like 1934's Men in White) for $19.95 a title and directly from Warners. This is legit, not bootlegs. The movies are said to be remastered and in their correct aspect ratio. There are video samples for those who want to see if the quality is up to snuff. I haven't gone through the entire list, and more are being added, but it looks to be a good idea.

Philip Marlowe on Film: The Big Sleep (1978)

"What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep."

~Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) in The Big Sleep~


In 1978, British director Michael Winner (Deathwish) filmed his version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel, The Big Sleep. Winner's take on the tale was set in the-then present day and had weary, smart-aleck private investigator Philip Marlowe based in England, the character having remained there after presumably serving in the U.S. army during World War II. Despite that, the film is largely faithful to the novel, but with typical 1970s gratuitous sex and violence to make it more palatable and less "old fashioned" to 1970s audiences. Though considering the censorship practices in the 1930s, those more unsavory elements probably would have been in the book had the times permitted it. I initially preferred this version over the much-lauded 1946 version (directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe) and found the change of location interesting. This was Mitchum's second crack at playing the knight in rumpled suit, having appeared in 1975's Farewell, My Lovely. The Big Sleep gets much criticism because A) It's directed by Michael Winner, who is largely reviled in Great Britain for being a Grade A Jerk and name-dropping snob, and sub-par filmmaker. and B) Chandler's romantic, ghostly, and morally decayed Los Angeles is replaced as the locale by soggy, scruddy-weather England.

The cast here is quite impressive, with James Stewart as invalid General Sternwood, and Sarah Miles and Candy Clark as his troubled daughters. The cast is rounded out by Richard Boone, Oliver Reed, and Joan Collins. Mitchum seems to be enjoying himself here, even if his weariness is less in evidence than is depicted in the novels. In fact, he's downright cheery, even when replicating sequences from the actual novel. Though I love Mitchum in about everything, even total dreck, his potrayal of Marlowe still isn't right for the character. He's in esteemed company, because no one has gotten the role down perfectly and the man who could play him to perfection never got the chance. Still, Winner's The Big Sleep touches most bases, with Mitchum's delightful voiceover, hardboiled delivery tempered with age and the typical labyrinth-style plotting that makes the detective genre so appealing. In fact, the script improves on one of Chandler's best lines:

"I met her [Carmen] in the hall, she tried to sit in my lap. I was standing up at the time."

Jerry Fielding's score is also right at home with its high-modernist, dissonant sound that fits this mystery so well. It punctuates and moves the action along quite nicely. It works particularly well in the film's opening, when Marlowe is driving up to the Sternwood estate with the camera positioned at the front of the detective's car.

But what works against this version is the decided lack of Golden Age glamour that made Film Noir so appealing. This is more of a gritty crime drama and while it succeeds on that level, the 1970s were definitely not the apex of glamour, and neither were its stars. The supporting cast tries gamely to measure up to the genre but even B-Stars like Audrey Totter and Marie Windsor could work wonders in the most trifling of material, whereas Sarah Miles, and Candy Clark are merely adequate in their respective roles. Maybe it's because I could accept an aging Mitchum as the lead, but have grown accustomed to the faces that populated so many Noir films in the 1940s and early fifties.

For a decade that was best-known for its attempts at realism, the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep fails when it comes to that aspect of Chandler. The author's world has to be the sadly romantic Los Angeles circa 1940, just as Faulkner must be in the American South and McMurtry in the American West. I still like this take on the Chandler classic--a lot-- but the definitive version of any of the author's books has yet to be made.

"Laura Five-O"

1944: Cop Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews) is gah-gah for Laura Hunt.

1971: Cop Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) is coo-coo for Mrs. Mondrago.

Remember the TV show Hawaii Five-O? There's a fourth season episode, Highest Castle, Deepest Grave, which is a nod to Otto Preminger's Laura. In the Five-O story, cop Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) takes on a ten-year-old missing persons case when the skeletons of two people are found in a cave. McGarrett discovers that the wife and alleged lover of millionaire industrialist Mondrago (Herbert Lom) have been missing for ten years. When McGarrett goes to the industrialist's home, the tough cop becomes mesmerized by the painting of Mondrago's missing wife, whose daughter Sirone (France Nuyen) just happens to uncannily resemble!

I won't reveal the ending, but there's a lot to like about this episode. "Highest Castle, Deepest Grave" is also noteworthy for the appearance of 1940s character actor Jeff Corey, who plays the artist who painted that Laura-esque portrait. He gives a tremendous performance and is another example of those Golden Age actors being able to steal any scene they're in! Corey is really good in this! There's also a lush, romantic, love theme by Morton Stevens for McGarrett's feelings towards the woman in the portrait. Classic movie fans will get a kick out of the homage to Laura and old Hollywood, as I certainly did. After watching the show, I went and put on my Laura DVD...

"Ever See Laura?"

An Enduring Sex Appeal

In 1997, I was at a Borders book store looking to buy a copy of The Best Years of Our Lives (on VHS!) and as I was perusing the video section, there were two girls also browsing. They were no more than 14 years old. One of them was in the classic movie section when she saw the cover for A Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando on the cover. The girl said to her friend, “Wow, he’s hot!” I was pleased that a nearly fifty-year-old picture of Brando could still elicit that reaction, even if the man himself was by 1997 the size of a streetcar. Anyway, I said to myself, “Now if only they’d give the movie a chance.”

Fast forward (keeping the VHS theme) ahead twelve years to last week at my job. A few colleagues and I were discussing movies—a conversation I instigated, naturally—and somehow Raquel Welch got mentioned. I boldly declared that if she were a young star today, that she would be the world’s biggest star. I expected silence or resistance to my claim, but instead I received universal agreement! Stories were told about how so and so’s father thought she was great back in ‘68 and that Raquel still looked amazing. Another victory! Unfortunately, I couldn’t think to myself “Now if they’d only watch One Million Years B.C.", as that would defeat my purpose in getting people into watching old movies!

It’s not surprising that young women today (or twelve years ago) would find someone like Brando attractive. He was the embodiment of youth, was “dangerous”, and was completely different than any movie star before him. Those girls didn’t know that, but the sex appeal was still in evidence and it got a favorable reaction. Maybe it’s because 1950s icons like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley have been marketed and advertised so intensely that their look has become the norm for what defines sexy. After all, the youth culture took root in the 1950s and movie stars like Brando, Dean, and Monroe as well as rockers like Elvis left all that was popular before it in the trash heap, for better or worse. Raquel Welch was in her heyday during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and is remembered by a generation, especially Vietnam War veterans (this includes my own father) for her appearances with Bob Hope in those USO tours. Her cavewoman bikini outfit is iconic for its camp value but more so for its sex appeal. We as classic movie lovers should be thankful it isn’t all forgotten. The media believes that the general public can only handle a few things at once and so our collective memory is strictly short term. Yet the instances where old movie stars still resonate are causes for celebration because in a world where anything older gets forgotten so quickly, I have to be happy that at least a few things from a time I spend a lot of time immersed in can still have a powerful effect on a largely indifferent and unknowing general public.

Okay, sermon over-- I’ve got a date to watch Raquel in 100 Rifles.

37C-22 1/2-35 1/2: Raquel Welch in her 1960s prime.