RARA-AVIS: Re: A Whiff of Sulphur -- Eureka!

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 07 Dec 2007


Mark,

Re your comments below:

"Leigh Brackett, cowriter of The Big Sleep creenplay, wrote it. And she says pretty much exactly this in her essay about it, collected in The Big Book of Noir."

Why are you still talking about this? I thought you surrendered (a surrender I recall accepting with my usual magnanity and legendary modesty).

Seriously, though, while Leigh Brackett, as part of the desperate campaign to salvage some box office out of the TLG disaster, did say some nice things about it in an article that was later reprinted in TBBON, significantly, the script was written before Altman was on board.

Once Altman was put in charge, there were significant changes in the script. In Brackett's original script, Marlowe was much more assertive, much more, dare I say it, Marlowe-like. That didn't fit with Altman's vision, and, consequently, Marlowe was rewritten
(largely by Altman) into the pitiful wretch Altman wanted to put on screen.

With a different director, using Brackett's original script, the film would have been quite different, and, I would suggest, much closer to Chandler's original vision.

JIM DOHERTY

 

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