Trailer for the 1946 adaptation, The Big Sleep.
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is thrust into a world of drugs, sex, blackmail, and murder when he agrees to protect a rich man's reckless, uncontrollable daughter.
Chandler's first novel introduced private detective Philip Marlowe, and The Big Sleep set the standard for private detective movies. Down-at-the-heels private eye Marlowe gets the assignment to clean up after the daughters of a dying millionaire, but dead people have a nasty habit of trailing in their wake. The famously tortuous story line (Hawks supposedly asked Chandler to clarify a plot point about the murder of the family chauffeur; the novelist hadn't a clue as to who did the deed) seems beside the point when Bogart and Bacall are onscreen. The final release was recut to include more of their scenes together.