Sarah Miles | 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.

The world is at war and a child is having the adventure of a lifetime.

That’s the idea behind the 1987 best picture nominee, Hope and Glory. Taking place at the start of World War II, Hope and Glory shows us the Blitz through the eyes of ten year-old Billy Rowan (Sebastian Rice-Edwards). The world around Billy is on that is full of destruction, death, and often surreal imagery. It’s a world where school children wear gas masks and the nights are full of explosions and shaking walls. In the morning, everyone steps outside to see whose house has been destroyed.

Billy’s father, Clive (David Hayman), joins the army, leaving his wife Grace (Sarah Miles) to look after the Billy, Susie (Gerladine Muir), and their rebellious older sister, Dawn (Sammi Davis). While Dawn falls in love with a Canadian soldier (Jean-Marc Barr) and Grace is tempted to have an affair with her husband’s best friend, Mac (Derrick O’Connor), Billy spends his days exploring the ruins of London and collecting scrap metal. He and his friends loot bombed-out houses for all that they can find. When they hear that Pauline’s (Sara Langton) mother was killed in the bombing, they blithely ask her if it’s true. And while Billy eventually comes to better appreciate the reality of what’s happening around him, the rest of his friends remain cheerfully unconcerned. “Thank you, Adolf!” one yells to the sky after learning that their school has been bombed.

Hope and Glory is a comedy but it has a very serious core. Even while we’re watching Billy having his adventures, we’re very aware of what’s happening in the background. For that matter, so is Billy, even if he doesn’t always immediately understand what he’s seeing or hearing. Billy may be confused as to why Grace and Dawn have such a strained relationship but, for the observant viewer, the clues are there in every tense line of dialogue, awkward silence, and sidelong glance. One of the film’s best scenes features Billy pretending to be asleep while listening to Grace and Mac talking about their past together. As they speak, it becomes obvious that Grace may have married Clive but she’s always loved Mac. Marrying Clive allowed her to have a family and a home, both of which now seem as if they could all just instantly disappear depending on where the bombs randomly land. It’s a sweet but rather sad scene, one that’s perfectly played by both Sarah Miles and Derrick O’Connor.

I cried a lot while watching Hope and Glory. I cried when Clive told his family that he was leaving. I cried when Billy was forced to confront the reality of war. I even teared up when Billy, while cheerfully exploring the ruins of a house, caught sight of the house’s former inhabitant watching him with a shell-shocked expression on her face. But it’s also a very funny film. About halfway through, Billy’s grandfather (Ian Bannen) shows up and he’s a wonderfully cantankerous and proudly contrary character. It was also hard not to like little Roger (Nicky Taylor), the pint-sized leader of the gang who swaggers like a mini-James Cagney and delivers his lines with a rat-a-tat combination of innocence and jerkiness.

Not surprisingly, Hope and Glory was autobiographical. Director John Boorman based this film on his childhood and Hope and Glory is sweetly touching in the way that only a story that comes from the heart can be. This deeply moving and very funny film was nominated for best picture but it lost to The Last Emperor.