Richard Moore wrote:
"I would want to see verification of the go back to the book
and "shoot scenes straight out of it." While it may be true,
it is also the sort of thing someone might say to Chandler to
compliment him or he might have imagined after seeing the
early cut."
David Thomson's BFI book on The Big Sleep is very good about
the book and the movie, and how one became the other. Anyway,
he mentions that Hawks did extensive rewriting of scenes, but
does not mention his going back to the book to do it. Of
course, Hawks famously contacted Chandler to clear up who
killed the chauffeur. From a Chandler letter to Hamish
Hamilton (3/21/49): "I remember several years ago when Howard
Hawks was making The Big Sleep, the movie, he and Bogart got
into an argument as to whether one of the characters murdered
or committed suicide. They sent me a wire asking me, and
dammit I didn't know either."
Mark
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