The Big Sleep (35mm)

One of the defining film noirs, The Big Sleep brought Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe to the screen in one of Humphrey Bogart’s most iconic performances. Adapted from Chandler’s 1939 novel, the film was among the earliest and most influential screen interpretations of Marlowe, a character later portrayed by Robert Montgomery in Lady in the Lake (1947), James Garner in Marlowe (1969), Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973), and Robert Mitchum in both Farewell, My Lovely (1975). 

Private investigator Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired by General Sternwood to help resolve the gambling debts of his wild young daughter, Carmen (Martha Vickers). Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian (Lauren Bacall), provides assistance when she implies that the situation is more complex, and also involves casino owner (John Ridgely) and a recently disappeared family friend. As people linked to the Sternwoods start being murdered, Marlowe finds himself getting ever deeper into the case.