The Cinematheque

Events

• August 13, 2022 11:30
• Film Noir 2-Day Filmmaking Workshop

• More Info

• August 19, 2022 7:00
• 50th Anniversary Film Noir Party

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35mm Print

“The movie’s disturbing labyrinthine story of murder and betrayal now looks like a fable by David Lynch … No screen couple, before or since, had as much chemistry as Bogart and Bacall.”

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

$1 screening on August 13!

Many of the best films noir were made-on-the-cheap B‑movies, but some favourites (Double Indemnity, for instance) were prestigious productions. The Big Sleep is big-budget noir with a big-time pedigree—a William Faulkner script, based on a Raymond Chandler novel, directed by Howard Hawks, with Bogart and Bacall in the leads. And, of course, a legendarily convoluted plot that even director, novelist, and screenwriter professed themselves unable to follow! Bogart is tough-talking private dick Philip Marlowe; Bacall is seductive socialite Vivian Sternwood, older sister of the mixed-up young woman Marlowe is hired to protect. The sexual attraction between Marlowe and Vivian sizzles; the cynical, slangy dialogue astounds. ​“The film catches the lurid Chandler atmosphere. The characters are a collection of sophisticated monsters … All of them talk in innuendoes, as if that were a new stylization of the American language” (Pauline Kael).

Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled and ‑boozing gumshoe Philip Marlowe got a ​’70s SoCal makeover in Robert Altman’s sun-bleached neo-noir The Long Goodbye, scripted by Big Sleep co-writer Leigh Brackett. See it in a double feature with The Big Sleep August 19 & 21.

“A film of infinite interest … It’s unmissable, irresistible.”

Philip French, The Observer