Only the arrogant, the foolish or the bold set out to remake a classic film and expect to find respect. Flush with the success of Death Wish, writer-director Michael Winner must have been a bit arrogant in producing his The Big Sleep, a 1978 remake of Howard Hawks’ 1946 film noir classic.
However, Winner did many things right, especially casting Robert Mitchum as private detective Philip Marlowe, the role originally played by Humphrey Bogart. With his seen-it-all eyes and perpetually unimpressed expression, Mitchum plays well as the world-weary shamus (and of course, he played several in classic ‘40s films noir). It was also a good touch setting The Big Sleep in the present day and moving the setting from Southern California to England. Jimmy Stewart turned in a fine performance as Gen. Sternwood, the failing patriarch of a great fortune and a pair of uncontrollable daughters. Winner untied the famously knotty, incomprehensible screenplay from the original film, keeping the dialogue and plot in line with author Raymond Chandler, whose novel was the basis for both pictures.
What the remake lacked was a lead actress of Lauren Bacall’s stature. Sarah Miles was flat in Bacall’s role as the general’s eldest; the crazy younger Sternwood daughter, a mysterious vixen in the original, is rewritten as an uninteresting wacko. Ultimately, the big problem with The Big Sleep ’78 was lack of chemistry. The original crackled with Bogart and Bacall’s erotic push and pull. Chemistry in the remake is limited to the interplay between the old lions, Mitchum and Stewart.
The DVD’s bonus features are of interest, including an interview about Chandler’s enduring popularity with Maxim Jakubowski of London’s Murder One bookstore.
