"The notion that such persons are gay of heart and carefree is curiously untrue. They lead, as a matter of fact, an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats."
- James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Looking for Sean

I was talking to my son recently about the movie The Big Sleep. He was looking for a movie to play with for his film scoring class and I gave him The Maltese Falcon, saying that my second choice was The Big Sleep, only because the plot is so convoluted.

The Big Sleep is actually my favorite movie. The dialogue is to die for, and I adore the rainy Los Angeles setting. I think they count this as a noir movie, although it has a happy ending, if you don't count the fact that they have to put Carmen Sternwood in rehab. At least the boy gets the girl.



Is this trailer not perfect?

Back to the plot - it's so mixed up, I barely know where to begin. Phillip Marlowe (who is never addressed as anything but his last name) is hired by a wealthy man to pay off a blackmailer, but everyone else thinks he must be looking for the wealthy man's former bodyguard, Sean Regan.



The plot plays out from there, with at least five murders. Six, if you count Regan. We never see him. He is missing, and the implication is that Eddie Mars has murdered him and hidden the body.



I started thinking about this. What if Sean Regan wasn't murdered?

I'm tempted to write this book, but I'd like to hear from you. What if he escaped? Where did he go? What did he do?

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