Characters*

• Marlowe: Morally ambiguous private detective.

• General Sternwood: military-war veteran, oil rich, privileged, powerful, old and dying after years of substance abuse.

• Carmen Sternwood: rich, spoiled, drug-addicted, nymphomaniac, psycho-killer, coerced into pornography.

• Vivian Sternwood Rutledge: alcoholic, gambler, divorced, strong, practical.

• Arthur Geiger: one-eyed, frumpy, gay, dealer in pornography and blackmail, owns a bookstore as a front.

• Carol Lundgren: Geiger’s adolescent gay lover, who kills for his man.

• Eddie Mars: well-dressed crime boss who deals mainly in gambling and blackmail.

• Mona Mars: Though Marlowe wants her, she sentimentalizes her husband and tries to convince herself that he's not a killer.

• Lash Canino: short, squat, professional thug and killer.

• Harry Jones: small, former bootlegger and minor chiseler on the fringes of organized crime.

• Sean Regan: handsome and vigorous Irish soldier-turned-bootlegger.
   

Themes

• "Big sleep" refers of course to death and there are a lot of them in the film:

  • Sean Regan

    • "that Irish ex-legger old Sternwood hired to do his drinking for him"

    • "missing" at the beginning of the film

    • later determined to have been murdered by Mars (in the film) and Carmen (in the novel)

  • Owen Taylor

    • the Sternwood chauffer

    • in love with Carmen

    • he was in the Packard pulled out of the water (probably killed by Brody, though that remains unclear and no one seems to care)

    • murdered Geiger

  • Arthur Gwynn Geiger

    • Porn shop owner and blackmailer

    • shot in his home by Taylor

  • Joe Brody

    • blackmailer who stole the film from the camera at Geiger's house

    • killed by Lundgren (Geiger's lover) who mistakenly thought he had killed Geiger

  • Harry Jones

    • common criminal in league with Agnes

    • poisoned by Canino, Mars' henchman

  • Lash Canino

    • Henchman for Eddie Mars

    • killed by Marlowe

  • Eddie Mars

    • Kingpin

    • killed by his own men

• Uncertainty

• Corruption

• The greenhouse as a microcosm of the city

• Nihilism and existentialism

• Film Noir

  • Anti-establishment; chaotic, even anarchic

  • In stark contrast to American idealism, the city is where dreams die.

  • Vice-ridden: drugs, alcohol, violence, sex, pornography, prostitution, gambling

  • Contradictory and complex

  • Morally ambiguous protagonist

  • Femme fatale

  • Anguish and insecurity portrayed by characters and felt by audience

  • Visually and thematically dark and shadowy

• Sex (almost)

  • Women can’t help but instantly fall for Marlowe:*

    • Marlowe refuses to have sex with the spoiled, stoned, nymphomaniac Carmen Sternwood because she blatantly throws herself at him. (In the novel she waits naked in his bed for him.)

    • Marlowe doesn’t have time to have sex with Carole Douglas, the librarian, though she seems to have all the time in the world.

    • Marlowe is too busy to have sex at Eddie Mars’ gambling joint even though hatcheck girl Lorraine Miller and cigarette girl Shelby Payne step all over each other’s lines to be first in line.

    • Marlowe plans to have sex later with the butch taxi-cab driver Joy Barlow because he knows it “wouldn’t be bad.”

    • Marlowe finally has time to have sex with the school-marmish, ACME bookstore clerk. When it rains it pours.

    • Marlowe wants very much to have sex with Mona Mars but cannot because she is married to a crime boss.

    • Of course Marlowe never tries to have sex with Vivian Sternwood Rutledge and she therefore falls in love with him in the end. (in the book she tries to kill him in the end.)
       

Links

• Turner Classic Movies photos, credits, etc.

• AMC Filmsite Complete story

• Roger Ebert's review

* from Artemus Ward