Anima Scythe (Slight Return): 2 BIG SLEEPS

The discovery of an alternate, earlier version of Howard Hawk's THE BIG SLEEP (1946) is one of the greatest archeological finds in cinema history. It's my all-time favorite movie so finding an extra version of the film is like some kind of angelic intervention. I know I'm not the only who feels a unique personal connection to Hawks' films; he knows the importance of rituals of friendship involving tobacco, coffee, fire-arms, and whiskey. His overlapped dialogue is groundbreaking and still ahead-of-its-time. The focus is always (for his non-comedies) on tough iconoclastic men and the way they need to be risking death and enduring hardship, and drinking and smoking and kissing beautiful women with deep voices, to feel alive, to prove their right to be in such cool company as each others'. A cigarette doesn't mean anything unless you're striking the match off the anima's scythe. And like all Hawks' best films. SLEEP is rich with these anima scythe cigarettes; on the lip of the void is where there is no time; ever viewing is the first.

I had already seen THE BIG SLEEP approximately two million times between when I first taped it as a kid and the alternate print was found. I had read Robin Wood's Howard Hawks book over and over (at the local library) because of my love of SCARFACE (1933) and THE THING (1951). Chesca! Chesca, my steel shutters don't work!! Could dogs chew off an arm? (This kind of an arm...) Between you me and me, Captain, he's havin' kittens.

Hawks is that rare auteur who can speak to me in a way that feels personal, honed to my own constellation of inner weirdness. We all feel a connection to the Hawks magic, but we don't feel it as an audience; the connection is personal, which is one of the reasons each film only gets better with repeat viewings. Hawks draws us into the group in a way we feel we deserve to be drawn. He creates the notion of a true, good, honest, self-sufficient commander we'd love to follow into battle, whether he sends us to our deaths over the Andes or about to charge some kind of super carrot. Such things matter to a film loving 15 year-old in search of a masculine code that he can't get from watching his dad drink beer and yell at the Mets. I was and still am such a Hawks fan that I refuse to read that huge Hawks biography by Todd McCarthy; I won't have his oeuvre tainted for me by unsavory anecdotes or other evidence of mortal baseness. I just couldn't handle life without my Hawksian ideal!

I remember the different chapters in my life by girls, like Hawks probably did. When I first taped the originally-released BIG SLEEP I was painfully single and a virgin, but I saw the newly-found version at Film Forum one rainy Sunday autumn night with, as Hawks would have called, her "a damn good-looking girl." I met her that night, we fell asleep at dawn and we woke in the late afternoon, making out until night rolled in, never once getting out of bed, my profoundly hung-over, dilated nerves tripling the usual pleasures of making out until I was literally transported. Eventually though we needed to get out and do something, so I suddenly remembered the new BIG SLEEP, I finally could go see it in the style it deserved! The ratcheted sexual tension and sudden wealth of big screen details and strange new and alternate scenes made me hallucinate. I never saw the damned pretty girl again, until a year later when she showed up at my door and I showed her QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933) and she thought I was trying to tell her I was gay, or a woman. What the hell is wrong with me?

I love movies, is what, and the sweet pain of seeing a film you know almost by heart but in a new altered version with scenes you've never seen on a rainy hungover Sunday night with a girl you've been in bed with all day and only made-out with, then you know that sweet, twisting pain is why we have Lacan, Freud, Josef von Sternberg, Shaviro, Erich von Stroheim, Baudry, Bunuel, and Dita von Teese, and Stadler. With that masochistic eye brought to the Film Forum on a rainy Sunday night, with this girl who didn't know Hawks from hydrangeas, I entered a perverse spectactorial realm of pleasure through which that missing scene at the midnight D.A's office burned a new chapter into my psyche. Sometimes I dream imagined missing scenes from movies (I dreamt an entirely different ending to ANATOMY OF MURDER where Ben Gazzarra attacks Stewart and then confesses), and so this DA scene became one of those, only real.

As W.C. said in NGASAEB, "you'll have to take that crab net off, dear."

While the film is less dazzling without the reshot scenes that heighten the Bacall Bogey interplay, there's more ambiguity about Lauren Bacall's character in the preview version, so when Bogey falls in love with her there's more of an element of danger, like he's taking a big chance the way he's not with his more casual hook-ups, like Dorothy Malone in that bookstore scene --a gem right up there with BABY DOLL and CASABLANCA. (1) as far as heating up the boundary of the code: did Marlowe and Malone just have a few drinks in the dark, make out while the rain fell and get no farther as I had done with the damned good looking girl? Or less? Or more? We'll never know; as opposed to this tell-all blog. I should have just done a Hawksian fade...

But while ambiguity reigns with Dorothy Malone there's no inferring with Bogey and Bacall, even in this early version they create a draggy vortex of desire, like two smoking cobras hypnotizing each other in a rapid circling that ensnares anyone who comes within eyeshot, and drags them to the floor in a druggy stupor.

Damn

The key scene that was missing altogether for so long is a late night trip to the DA office after the murder of Arthur Gwen Geiger is apparently 'solved' by the chauffeur's 'suicide' and then the nailing of Joe Brody, the grafter (who may or may not have sapped and accidentally killed the chauffeur who murdered Geiger "way out" on Lido Pier). The Sternwood name is brought up but it's clear the DA is an old friend of the very wealthy Colonel, so will bend the law to keep him out of the papers. That's the gist of what goes on. Maybe it's not enough, and Hawks trimmed it up as less important than more scintillating banter with Bacall going over similar ground.

But there was a lot of subtextual stuff going on that no scintillating banter could replace. The late night D.A. scene illuminates Marlowe's place in the constellation of L.A. law enforcement as a kind of knightly rebel. We learn why he "rates pretty high" for the insubordination that got him fired from the DA's office. We meet the brutish looking by-the-numbers homicide detective, Captain Cronjager, who wants to turn Marlowe in for sitting on his evidence, and not reporting the Geiger murder the previous night and we get more of the great Bernie Ohls as Marlowe's cop friend. It's satisfying to watch Cronjager fume with Ohls needling him every step of the way. "Cronjager's always been my pigeon" Ohls tells Marlowe outside the office with a cat-eating grin.

If that was confusing, and many are confused who've only seen this film once or twice and haven't read the book, I herewith describe the 'hidden' plot as I've discerned it, translated to a more linear form of events, i.e. what happens BEFORE Marlowe takes the case up through the movie's events, so MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, if you have only seen the film once or less or plan on reading the book, just stop reading this post and see it again for the first through fifth time, and also read the book, Chandler's prose is delicious and tight as a scared man's grip on a .45.

So, here's what happened: Marlowe's old pal Sean Regan (an ex-bootlegger and IRA terrorist) is friends with General Sternwood, "paid to do his drinkin' for him" as Bernie Ohls puts it.  And he's having an affair or just friends with Eddie Mars' hot wife, Mona. Eddie Mars operates various illegal activities like gambling and drugs and seems tight with the General's daughter Vivian, whose younger sister Carmen, a deranged nymphomaniac, makes a play for Sean and when he rejects her, shoots him. In the book we learn that Sean even taught her how to shoot, and she shot him, intentionally, when he was changing targets out in back of the mansion after he laughed off her seduction attempt.

Somehow or other Eddie Mars finds out about the 'accident' and makes arrangements to hide Sean's body and, since it's believed around town (whether true or not) that Sean and Mona were having an affair, Mars hides Mona out in a lonesome cottage behind a garage south he owns of Rio Lido so it can seem she ran off to Mexico with her 'friend' Sean Regan. Of course Mars doesn't do this for free, blackmailing Vivian who will 'do anything' to protect her sister and like so many blackmail deals with gamblers the pay-offs are done by intentionally losing bets for large sums of money, paid off in IOUs sent to the rich invalid Colonel Regan, who then hires Marlowe at the DA's recommendation and that's where we come in.

One of Mars' branches of service is an illegal adult bookstore, with the rental library in back behind a receptionist, and some scattered old volumes in front to make it seem legit as a rare books shop, sort of like those X-rated video stores you see in NYC now, where the front has a bunch of depressing faded blue Kung Fu movies and once you get it in you realize you're the only who's ever come in there searching for actual kung fu movies, and if you ask them for Jackie Chan's sixth sequel to PROJECT A, you're like Marlowe asking for BEN HUR 1860. It's important to remember that in the 40s hardcore pornography still was illegal, well-hidden, and prosecuted vigorously (especially the gay kind). Knowing Marlowe's familiarity with these kinds of operations (the porn linrary rental 'sucker list' is then used for blackmail) adds extra resonance to Marlowe's lisp and dark glasses when barging in on Geiger's place ("I'm late for my lecture on Argentine ceri-micks").

Carmen Sternwood's backwoods cousin -Jill Banner in Spider Baby (1968)

Arthur Gwyn Geiger is an associate of Mars and runs the shop and also, presumably, provides the content via his druggy home secret camera operation. In the film we see Joe Brody packing up the books in the back of the shop the day after Geiger's death and it's completely confusing why he should be hiding them unless he's trying to get the books out of there super fast so no one says hey, what's in the books, Joe? Geiger also deals drugs, one presumes, which is why Carmen hangs out there (and drink wine spiked with laudanum, like Lord Byron used to make), is to hang out there and act as sn unwitting model for the photos, which are snapped off the cuff inside a statue head. In a twist of a kind of white slavery / Requiem for a Dream angle she's barely aware of her exploitation, but as long as Geiger keeps the cocktails keep coming she's in no condition to resist or complain.

The Sternwood's car, with dead chauffeur inside

Lundgren, seeing Marlowe and perhaps putting pieces together

So meanwhile Carmen's smitten chauffeur--part of a long string of them thanks to her druggy nymphomania-- followed her to Geiger's house, sneaked in through the back, and he had a gun and the gun went off as guns will. The chauffer leaps into the Sternwood car and blazes out the back driveway. Marlow sees another car, that's also been staking out the house from down the street, pull out and follow the chauffer. Marlowe doesn't pursue them, but goes inside to find Carmen with Geiger's body at her feet, oblivious. Geiger's own chauffeur, Lundgren (above), is seemingly absent. He helps Brody with the books the next day but when Lundgren later finds out that Brody has the compromising photo of Carmen he thinks Brody shot Geiger, so he returns the favor and plugs Brody in his apartment the following night, while Marlowe is questioning him.

Shortly before answering the door Brody confesses he did follow the Sternwood chauffeur and came up to his parked car and "played copper," and that the chauffeur "acted rattled, so I sapped him down." The way Brody says this however, shifting in his chair and avoiding Marlow's eye contact, makes it seem like a lie.

So who did kill the Sternwood chauffeur way out on Lido Pier, if wasn't Brody? Was it Carol Lundgren? Was it Eddie Mars or his thug, Canino? Why would Brody cover for Canino and how did he get the picture? Did Brody think the Sternwood chauffeur was alive when he left him 'sapped down'? Apparently Hawks didn't know either and called Chandler in the middle of the night once to ask him. Even Chandler didn't know.

It was probaby Brody, who was staking out Geiger's place that night to see if he could get some blackmail leads on their operation. Clearly Agnes, who was working as a front for Geiger's book operation, had hooked up with Brody as the muscle for her own shakedown of Carmen. This leads to Brody's blackmail attempt on Vivian Sternwood with the recovered picture of Carmen from the scene of Geiger's murder, the picture Vivian brings to Marlowe the next morning.

This would seem to end the case, but after Cronjager skulks off from the briefing in the DA's office (the newly found scene) and Ohls waits outside, the DA tells Marlowe confidentially to keep digging and find out what happened to Regan. The general, who loved Regan like a son was worried Regan was mixed up in the racket. No one yet knows he's dead and buried and used for deeper, longer con of blackmail by Eddie Mars. Vivian Sternwood tries to find out why her father hired Marlowe and that becomes the bulk of their early interactions ("Do you always think you can handle people like trained seals?") since somehow she'll have to put him off the scent if he starts probing about Regan. In an effort to protect her sister Vivian goes to great length to prove there's nothing between Mars and the Sternwoods. When Marlowe doesn't buy it Vivian rats him out to Mars who sends to serious thugs to work him over as a warning.

Meanwhile Agnes has her hooks into a avatar / boyfriend for her dirty deeds, a funny little guy in a gray suit named Harry Jones.

The key as far as understanding Marlowe's motivations to keep going on the Regan angle, enduring even a later contradictory order from the D.A., brings us full circle back to the restored D.A.'s office scene: After dismissing Cronjager and Ohls and ripping up the pages in the transcription of Marlowe's disposition, he tells him to keep digging, on behalf of his friend, the Colonel. This is why Marlowe later shirks off pressure 'from the DA's office' to keep plugging. Marlowe doesn't run back to the D.A. after Ohls tells him this and say "Gee, boss, but last night you said..." I've learned this is how you get promoted, by doing what the big bosses privately want you to do even if, later, they publicly tell you to stop. Sometimes the way things get done that your superior wants done but can't authorize is that you do them and then the superior yells at you, to cover his ass. So the things is done and you were punished so the boss's hands are clean. But then, to the miffed shock of your fellow employees, you're promoted. Why did you get promoted even though you got yelled at? Understanding this, the seemingly contradictory statements like "I seem to rate pretty high (on being fired for insubordination) are understood. Thus, Marlowe becomes an agent through which the D.A. can operate outside the law.

I like the way Cronjager and later Marlowe sit on the edge of the DA's desk - like they're two sons at the desk of their dad, comfortable with his benign rulership, Marlowe becomes a privileged knight the old boy network that makes the D.A. a mirror of General Sternwood. The unspoken bond between these old scions is the core of the momentum of the film. Vivian is the one who made that request that Marlowe stop but he ignores it, suspecting she's hiding some dark secret that needs to come to light because "it's cleaner."

 And that's really all you need to know, except the end line "we'll have to send Carmen away, from a lot of things" never fully illuminates that she killed Regan in a "hell hath no fury"-style fit. In the book she has a much bigger role and comes onto Marlowe on more occasions (one of the few scenes re-shot or added for the new edition that's not between Bogie and Bacall is the one where Carmen shows up at his apartment to try and seduce him and then bites his hand) and we get the full depth of Marlowe's dislike of her associated with his detection of laudanum fumes that make her "stink of corruption" like the general's orchids. It's an odd mix of factors, as ultimately Carmen and Vivian's very existence is borne of the general's mid-life crisis, the end result, as he puts it to Marlowe, "of a very gaudy life. Frankly," he adds, "anyone who indulges in parenting for the first time at my age deserves all he gets." While smiling on the surface, the scene and tone of the film suggest that sometimes it is too late to start fatherhood. Be contented in thy childless state, lest scorpions issue from thee.

Through watching both versions of BIG SLEEP mixed together, flipping the awesome DVD, I am happy, General. For as a film lover in the 21st century I have the privilege, denied to so many of our ancestors, of instant access to thousands of classic movies. It's like a finishing metatextual touch from God this 'preview' version, for the film itself is all about 'duplications,' and doubles not just on page 116 of Ben Hur 1860, but the pair of Mars' more menacing nighttime thugs (Huck and Canino) doubling for Mars' daytime, more comical and unthreatening version (Pete and Sydney "that's what the man said, he said that"). There are also the two versions of the father  (the D.A. and General Sternwood); the two versions of the femme fatale (Carmen and Agnes); and the two versions of the sexually mature 'good' girl (Dorothy Malone in the bookstore and Vivian). There's the two versions of Agnes' patsy, Joe Brody and Harry Jones, and so forth. What does it all mean?  That veils and boundaries are crossed here, between the obscenely rich and the obscenely greedy, between night and day, death and life. Each person Marlowe encounters echoes another he met earlier until finally he runs out of buffers and faces the banal face of his opponent, one whom--it should be noted--never comes off as hostile or menacing at all -- "he just pays someone to do it for (him)."

In the meantime, as God is my witness, I'll never go to bed early again, not when I can re-watch THE BIG SLEEP and ponder the mystery of who killed the chauffeur and what the hell happened in that sexy bookstore during the fade-out to night, and why there's no one around today with the masculine cool of Hawks or the low voice sexy of Bacall, and how the hell that damned good looking girl I brought in the Sunday rain to the Film Forum would stop calling me. All we need to know is that Bogie and  Bacall both radiate such alchemically rich magic both separately and together that time stands still and the fine print of the plot fades into the dripping shadows of time like the last, chuckling gasp of Harry Jones. Bet that Agnes of yours wouldn't turn it down.

NOTES
1. See also: The Tell-Tale Dissolve: Baby Doll and the Collapse of "Decency"