Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Big Sleep Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson March 31, 2020

Shout Select has released a pair of remakes starring Robert Mitchum on a single BD-50. Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and The Big Sleep (1978) are only available as a Shout double feature.

Note that this review includes some spoilers.

I remember working on a term project for my history of cinema and media undergrad course at the University of Minnesota in which our class was tasked with picking selected scenes from Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep (1946) and then rearranging the shots to create a new scene and causal pattern. I can't recall if we could take individual shots from different scenes and insert them in but it was a useful exercise for the film production students, especially aspiring storyboard artists. Aside from stills printed in Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art, that was my first official exposure to this film noir classic. Until recently, I wasn't aware that it had been remade in the late '70s, or more aptly, re-imagined for a European milieu. My research indicates that executive producer Lew Grade chose to film it in his native Britain for tax purposes and that it was cheaper overall than shooting it in America.

Robert Mitchum reprises his role as Private Eye Philip Marlowe from Farewell, My Lovely and unlike the earlier picture, he's sharply dressed in expensive suits that aren't rumpled and drives a Mercedes Benz convertible. Through Marlowe's POV, the audience takes a jaunt around the rural countryside where he's on his way to Sternwood Manor. He's greeted by Norris (Harry Andrews), an obsequious and efficient butler, who escorts him across the manicured lawn to the greenhouse to see Gen. Sternwood (James Stewart), an expatriate tycoon who was an Air Force officer in World War II. It's a real treat to see two legends from Hollywood's Golden Age filmed together: the 70-year-old Stewart and the 60-year-old Mitchum. (Stewart has two scenes in different locales in the movie, which were completed on the same day. Both Mitchum and Stewart would pass in 1997.) Sternwood's youngest daughter, Camilla (Candy Clark), is a nymphomaniac who has gambling debts she needs to pay off to Arthur Geiger (John Justin), who has blackmailed her father. Gen. Sternwood wants Marlowe to locate Geiger so he can get him off his and Camilla's back. When Marlowe learns that Geiger is a proprietor of a store selling rare books and manuscripts, he quickly finds out that it's really a front for selling filthy books. Indeed, Geiger is a pornographer and when Marlowe trails him to his home, commotion erupts and the investigator finds Camila fully nude in a chair. She's just wrapped a photo shoot but something's happened to Geiger. Marlowe must keep the filthy pictures of Camila away from Sternwood's foes. The stiff Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed), owner of a gambling palace, is also very interested in this whole affair, not the least of which is because Camilla' older sister, Charlotte (Sarah Miles), is a patron at Mars's establishment and purportedly had a romantic relationship with him at some time. In addition, Charlotte's husband Rusty Regan has been missing for awhile and Marlowe gets himself entangled in much more than he signed up for.

The Big Sleep (1978) is a breezy and entertaining mystery thriller that I enjoyed more than Farewell, My Lovely. A number of critics were upset that writer/director Michael Winner shifted the locale from Los Angeles to London but the transposition didn't bother me because it allows us to see Marlowe try to solve crimes in a very different world. We also have to accept that after serving overseas in WWII, he decided to stay and devote his detective work in Britain. That's difficult for purists of Raymond Chandler's work but this version follows the original novel well, although it doesn't retain much of the dialogue verbatim. Winner has maintained Chandler's prose. For example, Mitchum says in voice-over, "...churning over in his mind all the pieces of in­formation like light snow in a heavy wind." The chief attraction of Hawks's version is its cool style even if it doesn't slavishly follow the book's plot lines. I've read that Humphrey Bogart asked Hawks questions about this character's motives and plausibility. Hawks conferred with the three screenwriters (which included William Faulkner) and they couldn't give him clarification. Nor could they explain who murdered whom so they asked Chandler and he didn't know exactly either from their scenario! Winner's adaptation is more plot heavy but it keeps the viewer engrossed in the detours and red herrings.

The film boasts a large ensemble cast featuring a luscious Joan Collins as Geiger's secretary, Edward Fox as a bookmaker, and Colin Blakely as a conduit/fall guy. Composer Simon Fisher-Turner appears as Karl Lundgren, a lover of Geiger's. Martin Potter, who played one of the leads in Fellini Satyricon (one of my very favorites from the Italian master), has a cameo.

Critics were not kind to The Big Sleep (1978) during its theatrical run. Many derived levity from its very title and shared first-hand, coincidental observations. Writing in the Evening Sun, Lou Cedrone noticed that several members of the [Baltimore] audience went into a deep sleep and "snored throughout." Winner estimates that his picture received about 70 percent bad reviews and 30 percent good. He defends his decision to produce a new version of a classic. “I made an entirely new picture, not a remake,” he told William Wolf of the Asbury Park Press. "Because there are so few good scripts around. You read 23 scripts and they are all awful, so you go hack to the bet­ter material. What are you supposed to do with great works — lock them away in a time capsule?" Candy Clark went on a multi-week press junket to promote the film and was its chief defender. “I like our Marlowe better. I thought their Marlowe [the makers of Farewell, My Lovely] looked kind of seedy, down at the mouth. Our Marlowe is more sharp, polished, one step ahead of the criminal mind, a ‘can-do-it’ guy," she told the AP's Jean-Claude Bouis. I don't have any official box-office data but it seems large crowds flocked to go see it. The Boston Globe's then-film critic Bruce McCabe recounts lining up in front of a big cinema: "I saw the latest Big Sleep under the best of circumstances, in a huge, Cinerama-style theater on Hollywood boulevard. I waited to see it in the first line I’ve stood in in about 10 years. The line was about a block long. It was fes­tive, too, with lots of young people in it...the expectancy in that line was real. It was like going to the Saturday matinee when I was a kid."

The Big Sleep Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout Select delivers the first public domain high-def release of The Big Sleep on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 that it shares with Farewell, My Lovely. (See screenshot #29 for one of the menus.) It appears in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which differs from the 1.85:1 theatrical exhibition. This is an overall crisp and sharp transfer. There are, however, a row of medium-sized blue circles that appear in the frame twice in two separate shots (within seconds of frame grab #s 27 & 28). The damage marks appear only momentarily during this first reel and thankfully don't recur. DNR tools have been applied to smooth the image over. Movie critic Fred Haeseker of the Calgary Herald summed up the film's shooting locations as "the lush green English country­side and the rain-washed streets of London." The former is particularly evident throughout these screen captures. The Daily (NY) News's Harry Haun notes that Winner "pours on the Technicolor" in the scenes set in Sternwood Manor. No digital manipulations of skin tones are apparent. Shout has encoded this feature at a mean video bitrate of 25996 kbps. My video score is 4.25/5.00.

The 99-minute film receives the standard twelve scene selections.

The Big Sleep Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono mix (1589 kbps, 24-bit). The spoken dialogue by the mostly British cast sounds crisp and authentic, if a bit flat. The sound recording is in very good shape with no sonic deficiencies or distortions to report. Peckinpah's frequent composer Jerry Fielding crafted a spicy jazz score with bouncy rhythms that demonstrate the most oscillations in pitch on this monaural track.

I also screened The Big Sleep with the optional English SDH active and they give a pretty complete transcription of the dialogue, although I spotted a couple spelling errors.

The Big Sleep Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Interview with Actress Sarah Miles (6:52, 1080p) - this interview with Miles from a few years ago has the actress giving a brief evaluation of the script for The Big Sleep that she was given and various anecdotes and reveries of Robert Mitchum. In English, not subtitled.

• The Big Sleep on Location (14:00, upconverted to 1080i) - Robert Powell gives the viewer a guided tour through several of the filming locations of The Big Sleep (1978). These are intercut with brief, on-camera interviews with director Michael Winner. In English, not subtitled.

• Maxim Jakubowski at Murder One (7:02, upconverted to 1080i) - Jakubowski is an author and novelist who has his own Murder One bookshop. He speaks about famous mystery writers and reads excerpts from a Chandler novel. In English, not subtitled.

• Mitchum in Marlowe Country Vintage Featurette (5:48, upconverted to 1080i) - this EPK featurette includes behind-the-scenes footage and brief interview snippets with Joan Collins and Michael Winner. In English, not subtitled.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:10, 1080p) - a grainy but decent-looking original trailer presented in anamorphic widescreen. It contains some dirt and a few small tears.

The Big Sleep Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Big Sleep (1978) is markedly different in tone and atmosphere than Farewell, My Lovely and I found it more enjoyable and entertaining. Death Wish (1974) is probably director Michael Winner's most popular film during this era but this picture has to be one of his better efforts. I was glad to see Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, and John Mills reunited. The trio had appeared in David Lean's criminally underrated Ryan's Daughter (1970). (When will Warner get that out on BD?) I'm pleased with Shout Select's transfer here, notwithstanding some DNR and a few print defects. The label has ported over three featurettes from ITV's UK Special Edition DVD but probably due to licensing rights, couldn't secure Winner's audio commentary and intro. Still, this deserves a SOLID RECOMMENDATION.