Some days business is good - and some days it's murder!

Meet Philip Marlowe, the toughest private eye whoever wore a trench coat, slapped a dame, and split his knuckles on a jawbone.

Robert Mitchum reprises his role as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe from Farewell, My Lovely, in this misconceived remake of Howard Hawks's classic 1946 film -- transferring the setting from 1940s California to 1970s London. Marlowe is hired by a rich and dying General Sternwood (James Stewart) to find out who is blackmailing him. Marlowe then meets Sterwood's daughters -- the crazy and degenerate Camilla (Candy Clark) and the more even-tempered Charlotte (Sarah Miles). Opening up a can of worms, Marlowe unveils a collection of unsavory characters -- Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed), an inveterate gambler having an affair with Charlotte; Joe Brody (Edward Fox), Camilla's ex-lover; and Agnes (Joan Collins), a sexy bookstore clerk. The plot becomes even more chaotic when it is found that Camilla has been posing in the nude for pornographer Arthur Geiger (John Justin). When Geiger turns up dead, Camilla becomes implicated in Geiger's murder.


The Big Sleep is a 1978 film remake, the second film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. It was directed by Michael Winner and stars Robert Mitchum in his second feature film portrayal of the detective Philip Marlowe. The cast includes Sarah Miles, Candy Clark, Joan Collins, and Oliver Reed, also featuring James Stewart as General Sternwood.[1]
The story's setting was changed from 1930s Los Angeles to present-day London. The film contained material more explicit than what could only be hinted at in the 1946 version, such as homosexuality, pornography and nudity. Mitchum was 60 at the time, far older than Chandler's 33-year-old Marlowe (or the 1946 film's 38-year-old Marlowe played by a 46-year-old Bogart).

Release Date: March 14, 1978


Distrib: United Artists