The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep

Philip Marlowe

Charlotte Sternwood

Lash Canino

Camilla Sternwood

Agnes Lozelle

Joe Brody

Inspector Jim Carson

General Sternwood

Norris

Harry Jones

Commander Barker

Mona Grant

Inspector Gregory

Arthur Geiger

Karl Lundgren

Owen Taylor

Rusty Regan

Lanny

Lou

Lou

Croupier

Taxi Driver

Reg

Customer in Bookshop

Cheval Club Receptionist (uncredited)

Deliveryman (uncredited)

Pool Player in Pub (uncredited)

Inspector Willis (uncredited)

Casino Waiter (uncredited)

Doorman at Eddie's Club (uncredited)

Eddie's Bodyguard

Casino Patron (uncredited)

Playing private eye Phillip Marlowe was actor Robert Mitchum who was well known for his roles in many film noir, detective and crime fiction movies including Out of the Past (1947).

Second film version of Raymond Chandler's novel "The Big Sleep". The first was The Big Sleep (1946) in 1946. This remake was released about 32 years after the original.

Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, and John Mills are reunited for this film, eight years after they appeared together in Ryan's Daughter (1970).

Near the end, when Marlowe and Eddie are in Geiger's house, Marlowe shoots Eddie twice and Eddie runs out. He is shot by his waiting thugs as he exits the house and bullets come through the door. When Marlowe goes to close the door, the bullet pattern the shots created has changed significantly.

When Marlowe brings Camilla home from Geiger's house, the shot from the car to the Sternwood's door shows Marlowe's car door open. The reverse shot from the house out to the car shows his car door shut.

In the night of Geigers murder, Marlowe returns to Geigers home in a Taxi (20:18) with a numberplate 7077. Next day Marlowe follows a truck from Geigers shop (25:26) in a taxi with the same plate 7077 after stopping the taxi in the street.

Philip Marlowe: [of Mrs. Regan] She'd make a jazzy weekend, but she'd be a bit wearing for a steady diet.

Philip Marlowe: Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains!

Philip Marlowe: What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a stagnant lake or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep.