Blogging By Cinema-light: Don't Make a Scene: The Big Sleep (1946)

The Story: It's Philip Marlowe's first day on a case and already he's working up a sweat.

I'm not sure why this one appealed to me and I rushed it through to get it here. It might be that the days here are cold and damp and I just wanted the temperature to go up a bit.

But, I've always liked this scene. I liked the way both actors, especially Charles Waldron play it, and I like the fact that it's not your typical "meet in the office" type of scene for a detective story and that the surroundings are exotic and a little sick-making. I like that both are cynical men and honest about it...and about their own failings.

And I like the way they size each other up, are blunt, and come to a mutual respect despite their suspicions. It might be that Sternwood sees a bit of his former bodyman Shawn Regan in Marlowe. It might be that he just likes watching him drink. It might be that the frail little man in the wheelchair has no where else to turn and is suspicious of every one he depends on.

But, it's probably the writing. Raymond Chandler is a favorite of mine, but when he is transposed to the screen (or when he's writing the screenplay himself), there is a writerly quality that comes through. Here, those literary edges are being sanded down by writers of the quality of William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett (whom director Hawks often said he used because "she writes like a man," which may sound sexist if it came from anyone but Hawks, whose sensibilities included a gender-bending quality) and Jules Furthman, all frequent collaborators, whom Hawks would use no matter the genre he was playing in. Then, as was his habit, Hawks would re-write the scene before filming, keeping it fresh and buffing out any imperfections that may hamper filming or blocking.

Chandler still comes through, but it is still articulate and colorful while keeping it conversational.

Anyway, I like this scene from the first version of The Big Sleep.

The Set-Up: "Shamus" Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) has driven up to the quite well-to-do Sternwood estate to see his potential client, General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) who has a problem that he obviously doesn't want to go to the police about. So, through the very political District Attorney's office, he has sought help through other channels. The man recommended is coming through the door now.

Action!

7. INT. GREENHOUSE CHOKED WITH ORCHID PLANTS
Marlowe, following Norris between the crowding tendrils and branches. The place is oven-hot, damp with sweat, green with gloom. Marlowe is already reacting to it, is already mopping his face with his handkerchief.

MED. CLOSE SHOT - GENERAL STERNWOOD
in a wheelchair in center of the greenhouse, in a cleared space about which the plants crowd and hover. The GENERAL is the man we saw in the portrait, although older, and obviously dying, so that only his fierce eyes seem to have any life. Even in the terrific heat his body is wrapped in a traveling rug and a heavy bathrobe, his gnarled hands lying like dead gnarled twigs on the rug, his fierce eyes following as Norris leads Marlowe in.

NORRIS (to General Sternwood) This is Mr. Marlowe, General.
The General does not speak, only the fierce eyes stare at Marlowe as Norris pushes a wicker chair up behind Marlowe's legs.

MARLOWE How do you do, sir?

GEN. STERNWOOD Sit down.
MARLOWE Thank you.

GEN. STERNWOOD Brandy, Norris. How do you like your brandy, sir?

MARLOWE In a glass.
Norris takes Marlowe's hat, exits.

GEN. STERNWOOD I used to like mine with champagne. The champagne cold as Valley Forge and with about three ponies of brandy under it.

GEN. STERNWOOD Oh, come, come, man. Pour a decent one.

GEN. STERNWOOD I like to see people drink.

GEN. STERNWOOD That'll do, Norris.

GEN. STERNWOOD You may take off your coat, sir.
MARLOWE Thank you.
Marlowe rises, removes his coat, takes out his handkerchief, hangs his coat on chair.

GEN. STERNWOOD It's too hot in here for any men who has blood in his vein.

GEN. STERNWOOD You may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it.
He produces a cigarette, lights it, blows smoke. Sternwood's nostrils moving as he sniffs the smoke.

GEN. STERNWOOD Hum, nice state of affair a man who has to indulge his vices by proxy. You're looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life,

GEN. STERNWOOD ...crippled, paralyzed in both legs, barely I eat and my sleep is so near waking it's hardly worth a name. I seem to exist largely on heat like a new born spider.

MARLOWE Yeah.
GEN. STERNWOOD The orchids are an excuse for the heat.

GEN. STERNWOOD You like orchids?
MARLOWE Not particularly.

GEN. STERNWOOD Nasty things.

GEN. STERNWOOD Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. Their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.

GEN. STERNWOOD Mmm...

GEN. STERNWOOD Tell me about yourself, Mr. Marlowe.

MARLOWE There's isn't much to tell. I'm thirty-eight. I went to college. I can still speak English when my business demands it. I used to work for the District Attorney's office. It was Bernie Ohls, Chief Inspector, who sent word you wanted to see me.

GEN. STERNWOOD You didn't like working for the District Attorney, eh?

MARLOWE (laughing)

MARLOWE I was fired for insubordination. I seem to rate pretty high on that.

GEN. STERNWOOD I always did myself.

GEN. STERNWOOD What do you know about my family, Mr. Marlowe?

MARLOWE You're a widower, a millionaire, have two young daughters. One unmarried, one married a couple of years ago to a man named Rutledge but it didn't take. Both living with you and both...
(he breaks off; the General's fierce eyes watch him)

GEN. STERNWOOD Go on, sir.

MARLOWE Both pretty and

MARLOWE ...both pretty wild.

MARLOWE What did you want to see me about?

GEN. STERNWOOD I'm being blackmailed again.

MARLOWE Again?
Sternwood draws his hand out from under the rug, holding a brown envelope.

GEN. STERNWOOD About a year ago I paid a man named Joe Brody five thousand dollars to let my younger daughter alone.
MARLOWE Mm.

GEN. STERNWOOD What does that mean?

MARLOWE (laughing)

MARLOWE It means "Mm." It didn't go through the District Attorney's office, or I'd have heard about it.

MARLOWE Who handled it for you?
GEN. STERNWOOD Shawn Regan.
Marlowe alternates between the drink, the cigarette and the now sodden handkerchief with which he mops his face and neck.

MARLOWE Shawn Regan. There must be some reason why he isn't handling it this time. What is it?
GEN. STERNWOOD Shawn has left me.
MARLOWE I thought I hadn't seen him around lately.
GEN. STERNWOOD About a month ago, without a word.

GEN. STERNWOOD I had no claim on him. I was only his employer. But I had hoped he'd come to regard me as something more than that. At least he would have said, "goodbye."

GEN. STERNWOOD That was what hurt.

GEN. STERNWOOD You knew him, too?
MARLOWE Yes. In old days, when he used to run rum out of Mexico, I was on the other side.

MARLOWE We used to swap shots between drinks or drinks between shots, which ever you like.

GEN. STERNWOOD (laughing) My respects to you, sir. Few men ever swap more than one shot with Shawn Regan. He commanded a brigade in the Irish Republican Army.. You knew that.

MARLOWE No, I didn't.

GEN. STERNWOOD Oh.

MARLOWE But I knew he was a good man at whatever he did.

MARLOWE Nobody was more pleased than I when I heard you had taken him on as your... whatever he was.

GEN. STERNWOOD My friend,

GEN. STERNWOOD ...my son almost.

GEN. STERNWOOD (laughing) Many an hour he sat here with me, sweating like a pig,

GEN. STERNWOOD ...drinking the brandy I could no longer drink, telling stories of the Irish revolution.

GEN. STERNWOOD No, enough of that. Here.

Sterwood holds out the envelope. Marlowe takes it, sits again, wipes his hands on his wet handkerchief, removes from the envelope a card and three clips of stiff paper.

INSERT: CARD
-- in Marlowe's hand

MARLOWE (reads)Mr. Arthur Gwynn Geiger. Rare books and...

GEN. STERNWOOD Read the other side.
CARD READS Dear Sir, In spite of the uncollectibility of the enclosed, which frankly are gambling debts, I assume you might wish them honored. Respectfully, A.G.Geiger

MARLOWE "Respectfully"...Mmm...

MARLOWE These are her signatures?
GEN. STERNWOOD Yes.

MARLOWE Who's Arthur Gwynn Geiger?
GEN. STERNWOOD I haven't the faintest idea.
MARLOWE Did you ask her?
GEN. STERNWOOD No, and I don't intend to. If I did she'd just suck her thumb and look coy.

MARLOWE Yeah. I met her in the hall and she did that at me. Then she tried to sit down in my lap when I was standing up.
Sternwood stares at him. After a moment Marlowe raises the glass, drinks, lowers it.

GEN. STERNWOOD Well?

MARLOWE Your other daughter, Mrs. Rutledge, is she mixed up in this?
GEN. STERNWOOD No.
MARLOWE They're alike, they run around together?

GEN. STERNWOOD They are alike only having the same corrupt blood. Vivian is spoiled, exacting, smart, and ruthless. Carmen is still a little child who likes to pull the wings off flies.

GEN. STERNWOOD I assume they have all the usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves.

GEN. STERNWOOD If I seem a bit sinister as a parent, Mr. Marlowe, it's because my hold on life is too slight to include any Victorian hypocrisy. I need hardly add that any man who lives as I've had and who indulges for the first time in parenthood at my age deserves all he gets.

GEN. STERNWOOD Well?

MARLOWE Pay him.

GEN. STERNWOOD Why?
MARLOWE Because she signed these notes, didn't she?
GEN. STERNWOOD Yes.

MARLOWE Who's this Joe Brody you paid the five thousand dollars to?
GEN. STERNWOOD I can't recall.

GEN. STERNWOOD My butler, Norris would know. I think he called himself a gambler.

MARLOWE Geiger says these are gambling debts.
GEN. STERNWOOD They may be.

MARLOWE Think they are?
GEN. STERNWOOD No.

MARLOWE I guess you want me to take this Geiger off your back. Is that right?
GEN. STERNWOOD Yes.
MARLOWE You wanna know anything, or just get rid of him?
GEN. STERNWOOD I just wanna get rid of him.
MARLOWE It might cost you a little.

GEN. STERNWOOD (shrugs)
Sternwood says nothing, merely makes a faint, impatient movement of his head or shoulders. Marlowe drains his glass, sets it back on the wagon.