Diana Quick | Through the Shattered Lens

Raymond Chandler’s detective classic, The Big Sleep, has twice been adapted for film.

The first version came out in 1946, just seven years after the book’s publication. That version starred Humphrey Bogart as detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian, the daughter of a man who has hired Marlowe to discover who is trying to blackmail him. Directed by Howard Hawks and co-written by William Faulkner, this version of The Big Sleep is considered to be a classic noir, one that was cited as being a major influence on director Akira Kurosawa.

The 1978 version was directed by Michael Winner, takes place in London in the 1970s, and features Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. Despite a strong ensemble cast and an excellent lead performance from Mitchum, this version of The Big Sleep still features one of the worst performances ever put on film.

Sarah Miles plays the role of Charlotte Sternwood Regan, the eldest daughter of General Sternwood (James Stewart). Miles is playing the role that Lauren Bacall played in the first film and, despite the fact that they both earlier co-starred to a certain amount of acclaim in Ryan’s Daughter, Miles and Mitchum do not have a hint of chemistry in this film. Actually, Miles doesn’t have chemistry with anyone in this film. She seems detached from the action and her frequent half-smiles come across as being not mysterious but instead somewhat flakey, as if she doesn’t quite understand that she’s in a noir. Sarah Miles is not a bad actress (as anyone who has seen Hope and Glory can tell you) but her performance here is incredibly dull. That said, she is not the one who gives the worst performance in the film.

Instead, that honor goes to Candy Clark, playing General Sternwood’s youngest daughter, Camilla. Camilla is meant to be mentally unstable and potentially dangerous. Clark plays the role like a giggly teenager, constantly fidgeting and literally hissing in more than a few scenes, as if she’s been possessed by a cat. Clark overacts to such an extent that you’ll be more likely to laugh at than be disturbed by her antics. It doesn’t help that she shares nearly all of her scenes with Robert Mitchum, a man who was a master when it came to underacting. If you’re going to give a bad performance, you don’t want to do it opposite someone who will make you look even worse by comparison.

The mystery of who is blackmailing General Sternwood is twisty and full of disreputable people. At times, the film feels like a a parade of character actors. Edward Fox, Joan Collins, Richard Boone, Oliver Reed, Harry Andrews, Richard Todd, and John Mills all show up throughout the film and, as a viewer, I was happy to see most of them. They all brought their own sense of style to the film, especially the menacing Oliver Reed. That said, director Michael Winner was never known for being a particularly subtle director and the film gets so mired in its own sordidness that it becomes be a bit of a slog to sit through. As a filmmaker, Winner was a shameless. That sometimes worked to a film’s advantage, as with the original Death Wish. That film needed a director who would dive into its Hellish portrayal of New York City without a moment’s hesitation and that’s what it got with Michael Winner. With Winner’s adaptation of The Big Sleep, however, the film gets so caught up in trying to shock and titillate that it’s hard not to miss the wit that made the first adaptation so special.

That said, The Big Sleep does feature the truly special opportunity to see Robert Mitchum and James Stewart acting opposite each other. Both give good and heartfelt performances, with Mitchum plays Marlowe as a cynic with a heart and Stewart capturing the pain of knowing that your children don’t deserve all that you do for them. Stewart and Mitchum bring a lot of emotion and sincerity to their scenes and, for at least a few minutes, The Big Sleep becomes about something more than just bloody murders and revealing photographs. It becomes about two aging men trying to find their place in a changing world. The Big Sleep was one of Stewart’s final feature films and he shows that, even late into his career, he was always one of the best.

2017’s The Death of Stalin opens in Moscow in 1953. Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) calls into Radio Moscow and demands that he be sent a recording of the piano concerto that has just been performed live. The only problem is that no one bothered to record it while it was being performed. In a panic, the head of Radio Moscow announces that no one — not the musicians, not the exhausted conductor, and certainly not the audience — is allowed to leave until the orchestra has performed again.

Indeed, one of the recurring themes of The Death of Stalin is that everyone is terrified of their beloved dictator. The orchestra fears being executed for failing to recreate their performance. The members of the Central Committee fear being the next person to be purged from the ranks of Stalin’s government. The two guards that are posted outside of Stalin’s bedroom are so terrified of interrupting Stalin and getting on his bad side that they don’t investigate when they hear Stalin collapsing to the floor. When Stalin is found unconscious, the only doctors available are young and inexperienced because Stalin recently exiled all of the good doctors from Moscow. Even after Stalin dies from a cerebral hemorrhage, his reign of terror continues as all the members of his household staff are promptly executed to keep anyone from learning either the exact details of Stalin’s death or the way that the members of the Central Committee responded to his passing.

The Death of Stalin is a dark comedy that follows the members of the Central Committee as they scramble to protect their own positions after Stalin’s death. The humor comes from watching historical figures like Nikita Khrushchev, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lavrenti Beria, and Georgy Malenkov act like panicked junior executives who are desperately trying to save their own jobs during a corporate takeover. Of course, the stakes are a bit higher. Whoever succeeds Stalin will undoubtedly want to execute every other contender for the post. As with so many of Armando Iannucci’s works, the humor comes from watching very powerful people act in very immature and petty ways. While Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) tries to convince people that he actually is in charge, the brutal Beria (Simon Russell Beale) tries to bully his way into power and the wily Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi, giving one of his best performances) waits for his moment to strike. (Beria, it should be noted, is one of history’s greatest monsters and the film, while a comedy, does not shy away from his depravity.) Molotov (a hilarious Michael Palin) is so loyal to the Party that he says that Stalin was absolutely correct to have his wife executed just to then have Beria show up and reveal that Molotov’s wife is still alive. Meanwhile, Stalin’s idiot son (Rupert Friend) claims that it’s all an American plot while the rest of the Central Committee laughs at him behind his back. Only Georgy Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) seems to have full control of his emotions and his actions and it’s not a surprise to learn that, long after the events depicted in this film, purged from the Party. In The Death of Stalin, the leaders of Russia are obviously scared of anyone who is too competent at their job.

The Death of Stalin is not only a satiric portrayal of petty bureaucrats. It’s also a darkly humorous look of life in a dictatorship, where everyone is at the whim of whoever happens to be in charge at any given time. The film is full of power-hungry narcissists who use their ideology and their nationalism as a shield for their own ambitions. Everyone wants to control someone else. Even as mourners pass by Stalin’s coffin, they’re given orders on how to properly grieve and move. The film ends with a series of pictures of various people either having their faces scratched or, in some cases, just vanishing. In a free country, failure leads to humiliation. In a dictatorship, it leads to non-existence as the formerly prominent are suddenly erased from a history that no longer has a place for them. Ironically, of all the original leaders of communist Russia, it was Molotov who lived the longest. He was 96 when he died in 1986. If not for Stalin’s sudden death, he probably would have been purged and executed at the age of 63.

On this May Day, with so many people currently trying to rehabilitate the reputations of the 20th Century’s worst dictators, The Death of Stalin is must-watch.