In London, General Sternwood (James Stewart) hires American expatriate detective Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) to deal with blackmail threats. However, what he really wants is for Marlowe to uncover what happened to his missing son-in-law. Marlowe finds that both the blackmail and the disappearance are tied up with Sternwood’s wild daughters, Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and Camilla (Candy Clark), a gangster named Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed), and a homosexual pornographer.
The 1946 Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall The Big Sleep is a Film Noir classic. Truly one of the great films. But it doesn’t always make a lot of sense and varies from the Raymond Chandler novel by adding a romance and obscuring all of the sex, drugs, and homosexuality that couldn’t be put onscreen at the time. This 1978 version does succeed in putting the racy bits back, and sticking close to the letter, if not the spirit, of the novel. But in putting back all those words from the book, I’d have thought that someone would have bothered to read them. Writer-director-producer Michael Winner obviously didn’t. He saw them, but had no idea what they meant.
The mistakes start with the casting of Robert Mitchum, and he is by far the best thing about the film. I enjoy listening to Mitchum’s velvety, reverberating voice, and he has an air of nonchalance that is seductive. But he’s not Marlowe. He is far too old for the role, looking tired when he should be ready for action. And Marlowe isn’t a nonchalant guy, though he can appear to be calm. He’s an aggressive man who can get wrapped up in his passions. I’m not pointing out what Marlowe is like in the novel, but rather what Winner mindlessly ported over to his screenplay. So, here’s a character who is sticking with the case long after he’s officially done because he cares, and Mitchum plays it somewhere between “I need a nap” and “I couldn’t give a damn.”
The rest of the cast is a disaster. Sternwood is a bitter man whose own failings are responsible for his twisted daughters, but he’s portrayed by Stewart in typical Stewart fashion. It’s Mister Smith goes to London. Sternwood first meets Marlowe in his hothouse where he stays for his health. But no mention is made in this version of why they are hanging out there, and with the all-American Sterwart looking only slightly down, and Mitchum appearing perfectly comfortable, I’m left wondering if any of these people knew what the scene was about.
Miles, Clark, and Reed are far worse. Charlotte Sternwood has nothing to do in this adaptation so Miles overacts for no point and then vanishes for most of the picture. Clark prances about as if she’s in a comedy about insane people and occasionally takes off her clothes. Yes, she’s topless (and bottomless, but you don’t see much in that regard), but not for that long so don’t think you’ll find anything exciting. Reed whispers his role. Did Winner tell him to do that or did he decide on his own? Either way, someone needed to approach him during filming and tell him to cut it out.
Far more is wrong than the cast. Once again, Chandler’s work has been ripped out of its time (and this time, place) and it doesn’t fit where it’s been dropped. Much like in 1969’s Marlowe, that put the detective in the summer of love, Marlowe and company are anachronistic to their surroundings. This is a hardboiled detective story with all the trimmings, and it feels silly in the late ’70s. Gone with the time and place (Chandler’s novels are quintessentially American) is the Noir style. There are no shadows or interesting camera angles to show the corruption of the world. Instead there is the same kind of cinematography I might expect on an episode of The Love Boat.
The changed time period also turns the story into a comedy. Apparently, one of the characters is selling—are you ready?—dirty books! Oh no. Wow, I can see why he has to sneak around with his hardbound “filth,” as Marlowe calls it. Then there are the tasteful nude photos of Camilla. That’s hardly the stuff of blackmail in 1978. Perhaps if she was the type of girl who attended upper class tea parties, but everyone knows she’s an uncontrollable, violent, drugged-addicted nymphomaniac.
The Big Sleep almost gets my 
rating, but Mitchum, though wrong for the role, still manages to slide some value into this crude affair just by speaking, though not enough to make it worth your time.
The other actors who have portrayed Philip Marlowe on the big screen are: Dick Powell in Murder My Sweet (1944), Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946), Robert Montgomery in Lady in the Lake (1947), George Montgomery in The Brasher Doubloon (1947), James Garner in Marlowe (1969), and Elliot Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973).