The Big Sleep The Big Sleep The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles. The story is noted for its complexity, with characters double-crossing one another and secrets being exposed throughout the narrative. The title is a euphemism for death; it refers to a rumination about "sleeping the big sleep" in the final pages of the book. In 1999, the book was voted 96th of "Le Monde"s "100 Books of the
The Big Sleep (1946 film) on the restoration of the 1945 version. Film critic Walter Chaw writes of the DVD releases of "The Big Sleep" and "To Have and Have Not" (1944), "The fullscreen transfer of "The Big Sleep" is generally good but, again, not crystalline, though the grain that afflicts the earlier picture is blissfully absent. Shadow detail is strong—important given that "The Big Sleep" is oneiric—and while the brightness seems uneven, it's not enough to be terribly distracting. The DD 1.0 audio is just fine." A Blu-ray edition was released by Warner Bros. in 2015. It "includes the 1945 cut of the film