The Big Sleep (1946)

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a rich family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail, and what might be love.-imdb

This is one of my favorite movies of all time.  Philip Marlowe(Bogart) and the sultry Vivian Rutledge (Bacall) become involved with each other while the former was investigating a case that involves the latter's sister.  This movie was released in 1946 and was based on the book of the same title written by Raymond Chandler.  The screen adaptation was written by William Cuthbert Faulkner, a Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford.  He collaborated with Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. 

I am amazed that as early as 1946, movies like this one already existed.  The scenes are moving and nail-biting.  The book was published in 1939, which makes it more interesting. The dialogue was intelligently written along with some dry humour and some really funny ones. It also makes me realise that everything in this world is just a vicious cycle. Hopefully, good, even in this day and age, would triumph over evil.

Philip Marlowe is a beloved character created by Chandler, and he is introduced here.  He is Perry Mason combined with James Bond, but unlike James he doesn't have a girl in every corner.

The 1946 screenplay tamed Vivian and Carmen's characters, but still, both Bacall and Vickers portrayed their roles quite well.

Bogie doesn't look like how Chandler described Marlowe, but while watching the movie, Bogie was Marlowe.  Yes, he was very convincing indeed.  

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Bacall and Bogart were already husband and wife when this movie was released. This was their second movie.  The first one was To Have and Have Not (1944)

Bogart was born in 1899 and Bacall was born in 1924.

Together, they have two children, Stephen and Leslie.

Bacall was Bogart's fourth wife.

From Wikipedia: The Big Sleep, like most of Chandler's novels, was written by what he called cannibalizing previously written short stories.Chandler would take stories he had already published in the pulp magazine Black Mask and rework them so that they fit together in one coherent story. In the case of The Big Sleep, the two main stories that formed the core of the novel were "Killer in the Rain" (published in 1935) and "The Curtain" (published in 1936). Although the stories were completely independent and shared no common characters, they had some similarities that made it logical to combine them. In both stories there is a powerful father who is distressed by his wild daughter. Chandler merged the two fathers into a new character and did the same for the two daughters, resulting in General Sternwood and his wild daughter Carmen. Chandler also borrowed small parts of two other stories: "Finger Man" and "Mandarin's Jade"

William Faulkner, one of the 20th century's most gifted novelists, wrote for the movies in part because he could not make enough money from his novels and short stories to support his growing number of dependents. The author of such acclaimed novels as "The Sound and the Fury" and "Absalom, Absalom!", Faulkner received official screen credits for just six theatrical releases, five of which were with director Howard Hawks. Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1949 and he received two Pulitzer Prizes, for "A Fable" in '1955 and "The Reivers", which was published shortly before he died in 1962.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: John B. Padgett

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Initial release: 23 August 1946 (USA)
Director: Howard Hawks
Story by: Raymond Chandler
Music composed by: Max Steiner
Screenplay: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman

The title is a euphemism for death; it refers to a rumination about "sleeping the big sleep" in the final pages of the book.-source