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
Big Little Book series to Perdition" (2002) showed a boy reading "The Lone Ranger" Big Little Book, but this was an anachronism since the movie is set during 1931, a year prior to the first Big Little Books and two years before "The Lone Ranger" premiered January 31, 1933 on radio. More than 1,300 Big Little Books and the many publishers are mentioned in Arnold T. Blumberg's "The Big Big Little Book Book" (Gemstone, 2004). From 1939 the British Woolworths Group sold "Mighty Midgets", 32-page books that measured 3¾ inches by 2½ inches (10 x 7 cm) and were sold at the artificially low