The Big Sleep (1946 film) The Big Sleep (1946 film) The Big Sleep is a 1946 film noir directed by Howard Hawks, the first film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. The film stars Humphrey Bogart as private detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge in a story about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its results." William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman co-wrote the screenplay. In 1997, the U.S. Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," and added it to the National Film Registry. Because the film was scheduled for release a
Raymond Chandler bibliography with Billy Wilder; the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first of seven scripts Chandler wrote, although two of them were unused. In 1959 Chandler died of pneumonia, brought on by alcoholism. In the aftermath of his death, many of his unpublished writings—including letters, literary criticism and prose and poetry—were released. His biographer Tom Williams considers that Chandler's name has become "a touchstone for crime writing, representing not just excellent fiction, but also a type of writing that is at once powerful and beautiful." "The Rose Leaf Romance" and "Organ Music" are