The Big Sleep: 10 Reasons It’s The Best Hard-Boiled Detective Classic

The hard boiled detective genre holds a special place in the literary and cinematic history of the American mythos. It both tells provocative stories and comments on the era in which its made. The Big Sleep, directed by Howard Hawkes, is a great representation of the dark side of America in the ’40s, with its sense of cloying paranoia and isolation, trying to make sense out of a series of chaotic events threatening to cast aspersions over its legacy.

The Big Sleep managed to distill all of the hallmarks of its genre to their purest and rawest forms. It’s hero was sarcastic, scrappy, and moody. Its heroine was a smooth-talking femme fatale. Its mystery was an ever-deepening puzzle box with more layers to uncover at every turn. And at all times, it had the sense of dread that would inspire the next great American film genre, the film noir. Here are 10 reasons it’s the best hard-boiled detective classic.

10 IT HAS AN EXISTENTIAL HERO

All hard-boiled detective films that belong to the film noir genre have a peculiar ennui, a sense of listlessness that envelops their main protagonists but never completely consumes them. Their find their lives unfulfilling and their circumstances tawdry and gharish, but they persevere by the strength of their spirit alone. They’re “tough guys”.

Humphrey Bogart encapsulated this particular brand of existential hero, prone to nihilism, with a sardonic remark at the ready to puncture any prevaricating sentiments that life is fair, ordered, and just. Life is rough, and a private eye had to be realistic about their circumstances, which is why Philip Marlowe’s particular brand of shrewd altruism had many imitations.

9 IT HAS A SIZZLING FEMME FATALE

Opposite every hard-boiled detective is an equally riveting femme fatale, who matches his wit and intelligence and provides a challenge. In The Big Sleep, 20 year old Lauren Bacall steps up to the plate opposite Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe, who was over twice her age.

As Vivian Rutledge, the older daughter of Marlowe’s client General Sternwood, she is demure, elegant, and sophisticated. Beneath her classy veneer however, lurks a restless spirit of dubious motivations. In the detective genre, getting too close to the leading lady was dangerous, and it’s never more the case than with her.

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8 IT HAS A COMPLEX MYSTERY

The best hard-boiled detective films don’t have a simple mystery. They are not, to quote a famous detective,”Elementary.”. They will involve a dual structure to their problem; there will be a surface mystery (often the one the PI is initially hired to solve), and a deeper mystery below that surface which will present itself to the PI over the course of their investigation.

In The Big Sleep, the main reason Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood is to discern why his nymphomaniac daughter is being blackmailed. But Marlowe soon finds out that Sternwood is also plagued by the recent disappearance of his aid, Sean Regan, who he suspects has been met with foul play.

7 IT HAS SNAPPY WISE-CRACKS

Raymond Chandler often imbued his detective novels with a wry sense of humor. He often cited the American Dream as the ultimate grift, and his characters had a similar sense of disenfranchisement. The only antidote was good conversation, where pithy wise-cracks broke the fragrant depression.

The dialogue for The Big Sleep was written by William Faulkner, Jules Furthman, and Leigh Brackett. Brackett would go on to write the dialogue for the Star Wars film Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The snappy lines are delivered rapid-fire like bullets, maintaining the level of suspense throughout the film.

6 IT HAS NO HEROIC CHARACTERS

In the first few minutes of the film, when Philip Marlowe meets his client General Sternwood, there’s a scene that properly conveys the context from which all the rest of the characters originate; everyone’s existence is some level of rank purification, they’re simply doing what they can to survive.

It’s why there are no heroic characters, and as Marlowe gets deeper into the lives of the three Sternwood family members at the center of the mystery, he realizes any of them will do whatever it takes not to be dragged down by the others’ sinking reputation. They live in a grey world where morality is thin.

5 IT FEATURED MEN AND WOMEN ON EQUAL FOOTING

In the Pre-Code era of Hollywood, many characters depicting women of “ill repute” were featured in films without much fuss. What this tended to mean, is that women who were deemed too “insolent” for talking back to men in any other period got to have their say in the plot of the film.

There are several prominent female characters in The Big Sleep who are extremely self-possessed and not afraid to strut their stuff and flaunt their conviction. Vivian Rutledge, Carmen Sternwood, Mona Mars, and even a bookshop clerk who unabashedly makes advances on Philip Marlowe because he “intrigues” her have just as much screen time -and just as much importance to the plot- as the male characters.

4 IT DOESN’T HAVE A HAPPY ENDING

Throughout The Big Sleep there’s a pervasive feeling of dread. With each new murder, and each new suspect revealed, there’s an encroaching sense of inevitability. And even though Philip Marlowe solves the case he’s meant to solve, he isn’t happy about it.

The Big Sleep and its plot only seem to confirm Marlowe’s biggest fears; that bad things happen to good people, and good people aren’t always what they appear to be. Even though he solved the case, the same miserable people left alive will still find ways to backstab each other. A hard-boiled detective film isn’t a fairy tale for a reason, and seldom has a happy ending.

3 IT KICK STARTED THE FILM NOIR GENRE

There will always be some debate about whether or not “film noir” is a genre of film or a cinematic visual style that can be applied to a variety of genres, but after The Big Sleep, the ’40s and ’50s became steeped in what can be called “the last great American film genre” that had been slowly emerging since the Great Depression.

Films of these decades were full of hard boiled “tough guy” detectives, femme fatales, morally ambiguity, sexual motivations, and cynicism. It wouldn’t be until the 90s, with films like L.A. Confidential, Basic Instinct, and Mulholland Drive that the genre would be revived. Now, with movies like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, John Wick, and Nightcrawler, there’s even been a rise in “neo noir”.

2 IT’S AN INSPIRATION TO OTHER DETECTIVE FILMS

The primary and secondary duality of its mystery, the dogmatic nature of its hero to continue the pursuit of the solution despite rising futility, the snappy repartee between the cast, the dark visual imagery – all of these archetypes are hallmarks of the hard-boiled detective genre and have inspired countless other films.

The film Chinatown starring Jack Nicholson is one of the best detective films to be inspired by The Big Sleep for all of the archetypes listed. Its hero is an existential private eye whose mystery ends up unraveling a political scheme, but he nevertheless comes across very much like the reserved and observant Philip Marlowe.

1 IT INSPIRES OTHER UNLIKELY MEDIA TO THIS DAY

If you’re a Star Trek fan, you’re familiar with the concept of a holodeck, where personnel on a starship can live out their fantasies digitally. It was first introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the wildly popular ’90s series that furthered Gene Roddenberry’s franchise of the ’60s and ’70s.

Captain Picard of the USS Enterprise often went to the holodeck to act out a program titled “Dixon Hill”, where he assumed the persona of a “hard boiled detective” and solved crimes. Actor Patrick Stewart and Maurice Hurley came up with the character after realizing their shared love of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe mysteries.

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