Directed by Howard Hawks from a Raymond Chandler novel, The Big Sleep ensures film noir's immortality. Bogart plays cocksure private dick Philip Marlowe as the last honest Knight of the Round Table, dispensing insults like gum balls and inviting every goon and dame to slug him. For all its macho humor, the sawed-off dialogue illuminates how treacherous Los Angeles was -- even then -- for a pretty young woman on the loose. (Thirty years later, Robert Towne and Jack Nicholson would borrow everything except Marlowe's moral code for Chinatown.) The "pre-release" version is more lucidly plotted but a tad slower than the released one; either way it's marvelous, malevolent fun. The feature is followed by UCLA archivist Robert Gitt's half-hour dissection of the differences between the two versions; it's of greatest interest to film buffs and academicians but a revealing, entertaining document nonetheless.
-- Michael Fox
The Big Sleep screens at 8 p.m. Friday through Tuesday, Jan. 31-Feb. 4, at the Castro, Castro & Market. There are matinees Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 and 4:40 p.m. Tickets are $6.50; call 621-6120. It also plays Feb. 7-9 at the UC Theater in Berkeley; call (510) 843-6267
