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 (1978 film) "senselessly gaudy" and "overloaded with big names, and in this case the net effect of an all-star cast is to make an already confusing mystery even harder to follow." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "All of the zigs and zags of the original story are in the remake; what's missing is the enthusiasm. Talented actors such as Edward Fox and Oliver Reed sleepwalk through their parts." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" panned the film as "a flat, routine procedural detective mystery utterly devoid of any "film noir"