Watched "The Big Sleep" last night.
Holy crap.
SO GOOD. So SEXY. It's amazing what they were able to slip past the censors. It's quite bold - actually bolder than films today, where everybody runs around naked, and nobody thinks anything of it.
Consider the scene when Bogart goes into the antique book shop ...and asks the shop girl questions about the storeowner across the street. Whom he is investigating.
It's a genius scene.
He and the shopgirl end up talking about rare books, but all along there is this crazy chemistry going on - He tells her to take off her glasses. When she does, he looks at her, and drawls, "Hellooo."... He takes a flask out of his pocket, she takes down two paper cups, grins at him in this insouciant way, walks over to the main door, pulls down the blind, and turns the sign to "Closed".
Fade out. No kiss. No nothing.
The next scene - it is an hour later (Bogart was waiting for the store owner across the street to return) - and Bogart leaves the antique book shop, saying something tender and cynical to her, "Sugar, thanks for the information..." The event is not judged. She is obviously a good person, a nice person. She's not a slut, a devil-character. She's a shop-girl with glasses. She is not judged. And neither is he. It's quite amazing, actually.
I thought: "Jesus. They just slept together. It is so OBVIOUS. They are strangers, they have a drink, they have an afternoon quickie - and nobody gets killed or pilloried or tarred and feathered for it..."
There are many examples like that in the film.
Lauren Bacall has this long fantastic speech about horse-racing, (Michael??) - she and Bogart are talking about how they love to go to horse races.
But that is NOT what they are talking about.
They are feeling each other out, they are trying to figure out if they should "bet" on each other. But nothing overt is said. It's so sexy. And it's from a Raymond Chandler story - so the dialogue is superb.
She says she likes to watch the races to see who takes the lead first ... but sometimes the best horse is the one who "comes from behind..."
Er ... what?
He laughs, too, when she says that. He laughs at the analogy. There is no coyness. They know what they're talking about.
I loved how, in the first scene, when Bogart comes to meet Mr. Sternwood - who wants to hire him to investigate his own daughter, among other things - but anyway, Mr. Sternwood is dying, and has built a sweltering greenhouse in the back, where he sits all day in a wheelchair. The heat helps him.
Bogart comes into that environment - and as the scene progresses - you can watch Bogart get hotter and hotter. It's so subtle - and Bogart would have been completely in charge of the progression of that. No director will ever remind you: "Now remember - it's hot!!" Bogart would have known that, instinctively. You can watch his discomfort grow. And when he exited the scene - there were huge sweat stains on the back of his shirt.
The film was done in 1946 ... and not often were stars, in those days, supposed to look un-shaven, sweaty, disheveled, what have you.
But this was Warner Brothers, first of all - a studio known for making gritty dark pictures. So maybe that was part of it.
I noticed the sweat stain immediately. In fact, I looked for it. It's the kind of stuff actors notice. I also noticed that he is then called in to meet with the Lauren Bacall character - and the sweat stain is still there, through the scene.
This is a very rare dose of reality, and human-ness - for the pictures of those times - and for a star of such magnitude as Bogart. It helps the movie. It keeps it grounded.
And then there's a sexy sexy moment when Bogart gives Lauren Bacall permission to scratch her knee. It's so good. I re-wound it 3 times. She sits on his desk, and I noticed, the first time through, her hand ... kind of idly circling on her knee ... it didn't call attention to itself, but I did notice it.
They continue to converse. She continues to gently circle her hand on her knee.
Finally, he says, in this bemused way (without ever having looked directly at her hand or her knee), "Go ahead. You can scratch it."
She freezes, embarrassed. And then, quickly, she pulls up the hem of her skirt, quickly and furiously scratches her thigh, pulls the skirt back down, and continues on with the scene.
It's a beautiful moment, beautifully realized.
Anyway. Great film. So much fun.
Posted by sheilaI was already a Bogie fanatic by the time I saw Big Sleep. And although Casablanca is my favorite movie ever (seen it 36 times), Big Sleep may be my favorite *Bogart* movie.
Dangit, I don't have any time for this, but now I HAVE to run to the library and get it!
Posted by: mitch at May 22, 2004 10:37 AMBogart seemed to have a very rare level of detachment from and bemusement with his existence as a star. Judging from history, it's exceptionally difficult to become a great (or even a mediocre but popular) actor without being self-obsessed, but Bogart seemed to pull it off with ease. A deserving and highly appropriate subject for obsession, red.
Posted by: MikeR at May 22, 2004 1:56 PMI love those moments in movies.
Posted by: Da Goddess at May 22, 2004 8:08 PMAbout that implied encounter in the bookstore, there was a similar moment in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, right after Walter Huston has given Bogart money for the second (?) time (maybe the third -- can't remember). A sultry woman smiles at Bogart and disappears through a doorway, and Bogart starts walking in that direction. Fadeout. Fade back in, some time later, and Bogart asks Walter Huston for money again. So we know what he spent it on.
I saw The Big Sleep years ago and thought it was great. I thought it held up better than almost any other pre-1950 movie (I'd say Casablanca, The Philadelphia Story and Holiday have aged equally well). Isn't it the one whose producers wrote to Raymond Chandler asking who committed one of the murders, and he wrote back, "I have no idea"?
Posted by: Michael at May 22, 2004 8:58 PMMichael - Yes. The chauffeur who was driven off the pier. No one could figure out who had done it. They called Raymond Chandler, and he didn't know either.
ha!!
Posted by: red at May 23, 2004 2:11 PMDamn! I've seen _The Big Sleep_ - and I remember the scene in the bookstore - but not the part about Spade taking out a flask and putting up the CLOSED sign.
Nor did I notice the bit with his shirt getting sweat-soaked in the greenhouse.
Nor the bit in _Treasure of the Sierra Madre_ with Dobbs getting money and going to the whorehouse. I will have to watch these movies again - very closely.
Posted by: Rich Rostrom at May 24, 2004 12:44 AMRich -
It's kind of fun to watch movies that are so heavily censored ... There's a kind of code, and you have to read into things ... You'll never see the characters in bed together, but it's almost better ... The imagination will do a much better job!!
Posted by: red at May 24, 2004 9:59 AMSheila - Yes, that dialog is great. I think it goes something like "I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get to the front, take a breather down the backstretch and come home strong." Translation: "You're your own man. You like to be aggressive ealy, then let the relationship develop its own rythym then ..." put your own interpretation on "come home strong" this is a family blog. And I'd say Bogie and Bacall spent many a fine afternoon in the boxes at Santa Anita and Hollywood. That scene came from people who'd been there, done that.
Posted by: michael at May 24, 2004 2:27 PMMichael:
This is not a "family blog". :)
I saw that speech in terms of sheer sex. Not relationship. That the two of them were bantering about sexual style, how each of them preferred to make love. Because (and this ain't no family blog): who you are in bed says a LOT (if not all) about who you are everywhere else.
later when he kisses her in the car - he pulls back - she says, "I'd like more" - He kisses her again, more passionately - and she says, "That's better." It's like she's coaching him how to do it, in order to please her.
Yum.
Posted by: red at May 24, 2004 2:32 PMSee how assumptions can get one into trouble? I thought that with your Dad commenting from time to time and allusions to your sister, this was a family blog. My bad. I agree that the scene is about sex, but sex and relationships and, it's Monday and I don't have the writing chops yet this week to translate from the Horse Racing into Sex. It's like tranlating Brooklyn into French. It takes work!
Posted by: michael at May 24, 2004 2:40 PMOh, and I think my favorite line is in the book store (Bogart to book store clerk): "It just so happens I have a pretty good bottle of rye in mhy pocket and I'd much rather get wet in here." That book store clerk was HOT!
The other thing that movie does is make me pine for the days when adults could go to adult places (say, bars) and do adult things like smoke, drink and flirt to the point of arousal. Them were the days!
Posted by: michael at May 24, 2004 2:50 PMWell, my family READS my blog, yes. But I WRITE the blog. I write the blog that makes the whole world sing.
And yes - what you said - about sex and relationships, in the scene. That was what I was TRYING to get at when I wrote: who we are IN bed says a lot about who we are OUT of bed.
I would love to sit around and smoke and drink and make wise-cracking remarks, and wear fitted jackets and high T-strap pumps. And sleep with a man who called me "doll", and then said, flatly, like Bogie does in the car later, "I guess I'm in love with you."
So grown-up. Yes, indeed!!
Posted by: red at May 24, 2004 3:00 PMThe topper, for me, is in "To Have and Have Not" where Bacall, in an unscripted action, caresses, then slaps Bogie's face. The electricity in that seen could run the projector all by itself.
That and the line, "You do know how to whistle, don't you? Just put your lips together and blow." I have given up trying to unravel all the implications of that bit of dialogue.