My Sleuthathon Entry: "The Big Sleep," or Doubting Shamus

This post is part of Sleuthathon, a Blogathon of gumshoes, hosted by Movies Silently.

How do I love thee, "The Big Sleep"? Let me count the ways:

1. I love thee because thou are, for lack of a better term, a screwball noir. That may oversimplify it a bit, but "The Big Sleep" is, without question, one of the breeziest movies you'll ever see about blackmail, drug abuse, murder and, worst of all, the smoking of unfiltered Chesterfields.

The tone of "The Big Sleep" is attributable to two things -- the relaxed banter between co-stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and the fact that director Howard Hawks thinks nothing about stopping the plot dead in its tracks in order to showcase the relaxed banter between co-stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

2. I love thee also because thoust women are more interesting -- and arguably smarter -- than the men in this movie.

I mean, look at the male representation -- Marlowe's client, Colonel Sternwood, is downright incapacitated, impotent in more ways than one. He can't do anything that doesn't involve a sauna. "I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider," he tells Marlowe. Then there's Joe Brody (Louis Jean Heydt), world's worst blackmailer, who gets a slug in the gut just for answering a lousy door buzzer. And then there's hapless Harry Jones (Elisha Cook Jr.), who gets talked into taking a tall drink of poison because he's protecting a tall drink of water named Agnes.

Meanwhile, look at the women! There are so many that Philip Marlowe practically trips over them, from Martha Vickers as the unbalanced Carmen Sternwood to Dorothy Malone as a bookstore clerk with come-hither eyes, a sexy pout and two paper cups for that bottle of pretty good rye Marlowe carries in his jacket pocket.

And don't even mention the female cabby who gives Marlowe her card.

Then there's the smartest one of all -- Bacall as Vivian Sternwood. She's not only as smart as Marlowe, she's as tough as he is. That doesn't mean she throws her weight around; neither does Marlowe. But she's there to help him outwit the movie's most dangerous bad guys, and Marlowe respects her for it. When he tells her afterward "You looked good, awful good," it's a declaration of love as heartfelt as a Donne sonnet.

3. I love thee for thou go-to-hell storyline that leaves plot strands hanging like unconditioned hair. We all know that "The Big Sleep" doesn't make total sense -- Hollywood historians have been telling us that for decades. For instance, nobody has been able to figure out who killed Owen Taylor, the Sternwood chauffeur, whose body was found in the family Packard in the water off Lido Pier. And, of course, it doesn't really matter -- even the script's loose ends were tied up as neatly as ribbons on a Christmas package, "The Big Sleep" would still be known more for its atmosphere and its quirks than its plot.

4. And finally, "The Big Sleep," I love thee because, at heart, you are a deeply romantic story in that way only cynical movies can be. You are the story of a Sir Galahad in a 1938 Plymouth coupe who saves the honor of the Sternwood family while falling in love with one of the princesses. You are the story of a slightly rumpled knight in blue serge who works for $25 a day and expenses -- one who displays emotion with a pull on the ear and a wince of a smile. One who fearlessly confronts bad guys who are taller than he is, with no effort made to hide the height difference.

Raymond Chandler described Philip Marlowe thusly: "As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where it's going out of style."As played by Bogart, more than ably supported by the woman who was his best co-star in the movies as well as in real life, he's a hero for the ages.

And yea, verily, that is the truth. 

"Dive Bomber," Starring Errol Flynn and ... Jack Benny?

The 1941 film "Dive Bomber" was released a month or so before the attack on Pearl Harbor. America wasn't yet formally involved in World War II, and it would be a few more months before Jack Warner started strutting around the Warner lot in the Army officer's dress uniform he'd had custom tailored in Beverly Hills.

But like a lot of films from that time, "Dive Bomber" anticipates America's entry into the war and gives us a lovingly-presented parade of military might -- in this case it's air power, in Technicolor, yet, and flanked by the rugged faces and forms of Errol Flynn, Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy. "Dive Bomber" looks great, and director Michael Curtiz never wastes a patch of blue sky -- there are always planes flying across it while troops and/or equipment pass by below. Dig:

World War II is a thing we're used to seeing in black and white, so the Technicolor scenes in "Dive Bomber" -- especially of real-life settings like an aircraft carrier staffed with actual people -- are riveting:



Based on a story by former Navy flier Frank "Spig" Wead, who also gave us "Ceiling Zero" and "Test Pilot," "Dive Bomber" oozes testosterone -- watching it makes you want to put on a khaki uniform and light up a Camel. Because there is smoking, always smoking -- in fact, the movie is positively Hawksian in the amount of cigarette-related male bonding that occurs. If you like a guy, you offer him a smoke. If you don't, you don't. And the symbol of ultimate bro-ness is to have the same cigarette case as your buddies.

The three guys with the same cigarette case at the beginning of "Dive Bomber" are Navy flyboys Joe (MacMurray), Tim (Regis Toomey) and Swede (Louis Jean Heydt). Watch them frolic and light each other's smokes!



Alas, tragedy occurs when one of the three (the guy whose name isn't as prominent in the credits) passes out during a steep dive and he crashes. On the ground, working in vain to rescue him, is Dr. Doug Lee (Flynn), whose fancy-pants education at Harvard and Johns Hopkins means nothing -- Nothing, you get me? -- when he can't bring the pilot back from the great beyond.

Dr. Doug decides to become a flight surgeon and try to solve the problem of pressurization and oxygen deprivation. In a weird coincidence, he begins flight lessons on December 7 (not 1941, but still). Then Dr. Doug is forced to team with the surly Dr. Lance Rogers (Bellamy), who is bitter because he is a grounded pilot. He doesn't even offer Dr. Doug a cigarette!

So Joe doesn't like Dr. Doug because he couldn't save Joe's friend. And Dr. Lance doesn't like Dr. Doug because he doesn't like anybody. And Joe doesn't like Dr. Lance because he thinks all that medical talk about pilot fatigue is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. So nobody likes anybody. And we lose World War II, the end.

No, just joshing. Everyone ends up respecting the heck out of each other and working together to keep 'em flying. Joe joins the team when one pilot's death due to fatigue hits him right in his cigarette case:



"Test Pilot" is chock full of delicious propaganda -- Hollywood always knew how to sell a war -- and our leading men, especially Flynn, deliver solid performances. There are, however two unnecessary inclusions -- one is Alexis Smith, who spends the movie chasing Flynn even though he doesn't seem that interested. The other is "comic relief" by Allan Jenkins as Lucky, a bumptious sailor who's trying to escape from his equally bumptious wife.                

Since "Dive Bomber" was a big hit at the box office, it was fair game for a parody on "The Jack Benny Program." The show aired on October 26, 1941, so there are opening jokes about Halloween, including this exchange between Benny, sidekick Mary Livingstone and announcer Don Wilson:

Don: You don't have the excitement nowadays that you used to have on Halloween.

Jack: I guess you're right.

Don: I remember when I was back in Denver as a kid. We used to have the time of our lives!

Jack: Denver? You should have seen the way we celebrated Halloween in Waukegan! The old-fashioned pranks we used to play. But -- kids don't have fun like that anymore.

Mary: Whaddya want -- plumbing or fun?

Then comes the parody of "Dive Bomber," with Jack unable to decide if he wants to play Flynn, MacMurray or Bellamy. Finally, the production gets underway, with bandleader Phil Harris as Flynn, Dennis Day as MacMurray and Benny as Bellamy.