Todd’s Movie Blog

TMC was showing The Big Sleep the other week (the 1944 original cut instead of the superior 1946 release version) and I was again struck by how there is a misconception about the film that has been fostered by most critics, even the usually savvy Roger Ebert.  Everyone always says there is an unsolved murder in the film, quoting the Faulkner anecdote of while working on the script he asks Chandler who killed the Sternwood chauffeur and Chandler replying he didn’t know.   The thing is the chauffeur’s killer is revealed it’s just not declared.  When Marlowe is talking with Joe Brody it becomes obvious he killed the man, he just never admits it, much like we know at the end of the film that Carmen killed Sean Regan for rejecting her advances even though Marlowe never comes right out and says that’s what happened.