The first movie we're going to take a look at is the 1946 Classic, The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. This movie came out at the height of Bogie's popularity and teamed him with his real-life love Lauren Bacall.
The dynamic couple first starred together in To Have and To Have Not in 1944. Their on-screen chemistry was solidified in the famous scene in that movie in which Bacall says to Bogart, "If you need me just whistle. You know how to whistle don't you? You just put your lips together and blow." Classic material.
The Big Sleep, based on the Raymond Chandler novel, has Bogart starring as Philip Marlowe, a Private Detective with a smooth tongue and mysterious air. Marlowe is hired by a dying old man to investigate the Blackmail of one of his two beautiful daughters. Carmen (Martha Vickers) is a wild child, prone to drunken fights with her many boyfriends. Bacall stars as Vivien, her older, wiser sister. The plot has as many twists and turns as the Pacific Coast Highway outside L.A, where it is set. It takes a sharp eye to follow the plot, so don't feel bad if you occasionally feel lost. The real enjoyment of the movie is in the snappy dialogue from an extraordinary script by William Faulkner, the famed novelist. This movie set the standard for quick, humorous dialogue that was perfected by Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. The chemistry between Bogart and Bacall is breathtaking and worth the price of admission on its own.
"How do you like your brandy?" Bacall asks demurely.
"In a glass, sweetheart," Bogart replies as only Bogart can.
It's a line that very few actors could pull off and he does it to perfection.
This is a movie for a movie fan. A person who notices the little things that make a movie great. It was a much different time in Hollywood in the first half of the century and this movie is an example of what some refer to as the Glory Days of Film Making.
The Second movie this week is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated movies of all time. So I Married An Axe Murderer, released in 1993 back in Myers' S.N.L days, did not fare all that well at the box office. Even today, it is rarely thought of as some of his best work. It could be that this movie simply gets lost in the hype surrounding the Wayne's World and Austin Powers phenomenons. But, if you want to see Myers at his best, before he became a huge movie star, definitely check out So I Married An Axe Murderer.
