Synopsis:

Recreates, extended and in high definition, the version of the film that made Lauren Bacall’s agent call for reshoots. Was his fear for her career without them justified?

Intentions:

Following on from Gangrel and Doctor M, I previously did an extended version of The Big Sleep that sought to reinstate footage from the 1945 Pre-Release Cut back into the 1946 Theatrical Cut. The latter was the result of re-editing to better emphasise the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, with about 20 minutes cut in order to fit in both some brand-new scenes (Vivian and Marlowe meeting as he delivers Carmen home) as well as others that replaced ones with equivalent content but were deemed lacklustre (the “horse racing” conversation in the restaurant instead of her coming to his office while wearing a black veil). A total of about 9 minutes were added, everything that didn’t clash with any of the changes made during the reshoots, this project takes a similar approach but keeps the 1945 scenes instead and only adds a total of 3 minutes of TC-unique footage. Since only the TC from the Blu-ray was available in good quality, it was used as the main source and segments from the PR (a special feature) were inserted back.

Change List:

The two story additions made compared to the PR are as follows: • Marlowe finding Carmen in his house after he and Vivian are at Eddie Mars’ casino. I suspect that this scene was filmed during principal photography, it is featured in the book after all (in a far less tame manner) and this fits with a comment Raymond Chandler made (supposedly after seeing the 1945 version) about the studio cutting down Martha Vickers’ performance so Bacall wouldn’t be overshadowed. With all the reshoots to highlight Vivian I can only guess that this was no longer a fear, at least not as much (not sure if there were other scenes with Vickers, not kept in either cut). • Marlowe has a longer conversation with Ohls after the previous addition, adds a bit of exposition that’s not unhelpful in this famously complicated plot. Changes listed are made relative to the Theatrical Cut, which was used as the main source. • 0:00:00 Added fanedit disclaimer and personal plate • 0:00:10 WB logo (normal credits) • 0:00:18 Extended WB logo to accommodate new fade to background plate for redone opening credits, ashtray clip (darkened to avoid merging with text) from the film’s end looped and smoke added using Fusion in DaVinci Resolve with grain overlay added for realism. • 0:00:21 Repasted extracted credits text, still images extracted from Theatrical Cut and given a glow and slight camera shake effect. • 0:00:25 Added “A Warner Bros. First National Picture” text under the title card, moved here to make space for Sonia Darrin’s credit on a cast card later. • 0:00:35 Replaced Peggy Knudsen’s name with Pat Clark’s, cut and pasted individual letters from other parts of image. • 0:00:41 Added credit for Sonia Darrin (reportedly left out due to a dispute between her agent and the studio head), space made by moving text “A Warner Bros. First National Picture” originally at the bottom to an earlier card. Text card was also re-centred. • 0:01:11 Marlowe arrives at the Sternwood house. • 0:24:06 Zoomed-in shot to enable a smooth fade from TC to PR segment. • 0:25:16 PR-only scene, Marlowe searches Geiger’s house. Faded from TC to PR source as camera moves and Marlowe passes by. • 0:26:15 Back to TC source as Marlowe looks at the coded diary. • 0:26:55 PR-only scenes, Marlowe drives Carmen home and leaves her with Norris at the door. Due to fades in the TC source the upscaled footage starts with Marlowe taking Carmen out of the house, repeated two TC frames of the previous shot of Geiger on the floor before cutting back to Marlowe and Carmen. • 0:28:13 Faded back to TC source as Marlowe walks past camera on way back into Geiger’s house, zoomed in slightly for smooth transition. • 0:29:40 PR-only scene, Marlowe arrives home ad examines the coded diary further. • 0:30:10 Faded back to TC source as Marlowe gets up to greet Ohls at the door. Starts zoomed-in slightly for smooth transition but then zooms out to the full frame again as the camera pans back with them walking to the desk. • 0:34:54 PR-only scene, alternate dialogue of Marlowe asking Vivian about the previous night (not referencing their TC-only meeting) but runs slightly longer than the TC equivalent, necessitating using the PR source. • 0:35:24 Back to TC footage as Marlowe tells Vivian to “Go ahead and scratch.” • 1:01:12 Zoomed in as Marlowe sits down to facilitate fade to PR footage for DA and Black Veil scenes.

Additional Notes:

The Pre-Release Cut has an earlier version of the Mona Mars scene with a different actress playing her, Pat Clark in lieu of the Theatrical Cut’s Peggy Knudsen. The PR opening credits however do not reflect this for some reason (maybe they weren’t complete at the time, despite the film being shipped out to entertain troops during WWII), so one of my aims was to rectify the issue. They are now a bit simpler, missing the Bogard and Bacall silhouettes and ripple/smoke transitions, but I think that this is not unfitting considering that the PR can be considered a work-in-progress. More than 17 minutes of the edit consists of PR footage, 14.6% the total runtime. This was sourced from the Blu-ray special features, 29.97 FPS frame rate, 720x480 resolution and more “contrasty” than the TC. After decombing to get the 23.976 FPS frame rate, the needed sections were AI upscaled to Full HD and placed over the SD footage at 25% opacity with a layer of grain on top, edges in the image are now noticeably sharper without looking too artificial. Grading was done at a minimum of scene-by-scene to match the native HD TC footage as closely as possible, DrDre’s colour (or lightness here I suppose)-matching tool was very useful! My previous Extended Cut (favouring the TC) changed sources at hard cuts, but to maximise the use of native HD footage I incorporated fades between sources at opportune moments such as when someone walks by the camera while it’s panning. As the PR had slightly tighter framing this required slight cropping (by up to 3%) of the TC footage, sometimes from the beginning of a shot and sometimes zooming in (or out) when it wouldn’t be noticeable, I am very pleased with the results (despite the headaches in aligning) and used this for the 2024 update of the other version.

Special Thanks:

Thanks again to MusicEd912 for previewing, nice to be assured that the redone opening credits looked OK, and also to both That One Guy and tremault for technical advice on the original edit that this was one born from.