--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Kennedy <pbjk2004@...> wrote:
>
> 'The Big Sleep' is a difficult book to adapt and make Hollywood-accessible,
> mainly due to its dark and convoluted plot, but this difficulty was compounded
> for Hawks by the censorship restrictions which made amoral character motivations
> more enigmatic than they could have been.
Yes, it' difficult. I think Chandler didn't quite pull together his cannibalizing from the pulp novelettes. His writing is spectacular, but the structure is not clear. I think Hawks did a good job, as did the cast, though as you say, it's somewhat sanitized.
Since people associate Marlowe with Bogart, a remake is a difficult sell, but it could be done. Some of the subject matter is dated, though. Who would be shocked by some pictures of a naked young woman today? The whole crux of what Marlowe is dealing with has lost force.
I do wish somebody would adapt Chandler's novella Bay City Blues -- that one has currency, and I don't know if Chandler ever wrote anything better than that.
Best,
mrt
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