Treatment of Women in The Big Sleep, the Movie

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Treatment of Women in The Big Sleep, the Movie Version

Often, we hear commentary about films that reading the book before watching the movie ruins the experience or that movies are never as good as the book on which it is based. The difference between forms is not as much about already knowing how the story ends as it is about the dumbing down of the work for a broader audience. However, Chandler wrote The Big Sleep as a piece of pulp fiction that was read by a large populace.

So, with this knowledge, I expected my experience with the 1946 film version of The Big Sleep to be less than stellar. As I watched the film version, one glaring difference stood out; the romance between Vivian Reagan and Phillip Marlowe which did not exist in Chandler's book. Overall, there is a clear difference in the treatment of Marlowe's reaction to womyyn.

"Shot during wartime, the film turns the draft induced "man shortage" into a satyr's fantasy; sloe-eyed heiresses, harsh-slingers with come hither looks, and horny lady cab drivers brazenly proposition Marlowe, who regrettably stiff-arms most of them in the name of business." (Hagopian) Two clear exceptions seen in the movie to the hands off, all work and no play attitude of Phillip Marlowe from the book are the romantic relationship with Vivian Reagan and the afternoon tryst with a bookstore clerk.

The most obvious reason for the change in the relationship between Vivian Regan and Phillip Marlowe is the movie studio's rationale behind producing Hawkes' film version of The Big Sleep. Lauren Bacall, who plays Vivian Regan, and Humphrey Bogart, who plays Marlowe, had created a successful pairing previously in To Have and Have Not. Warner Brothers asked Howard Hawkes to find another script to work around Bacall and Bogart to create another box office smash hit. The piece that Hawkes choose was Chandler's The Big Sleep. So, Hawkes' intention was not to be true to Chandler's version of The Big Sleep, but instead to merely dupilcate the monetary success of To Have and Have Not. In order to maintain the element of romance between Bogart and Bacall which was a key ingredient to the success of To Have and Have Not, Hawkes had to create romance between Marlowe and Vivian which was not part of Chandler's version of The Big Sleep.

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