The Big Sleep (1946).  Director: Howard Hawks.  Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers, Elisha Cook Jr.

Our films are never truly finished. We just get to stop at our deadline.  Brad Bird

Given all the permutations and alternative versions of so many recently released films and the lack of the same regarding older films, one almost gets the impression that this is a relatively new phenomena, one perhaps dictated by the desire of the studios to get audiences to spend their money on something they didn't get in the theatres.

This may be so, but the 1946 film The Big Sleep proves that alternative versions of a film have existed for quite a while.

Based on Raymond Chandler's incredible first novel (although all his novels are incredible), The Big Sleep follows detective Phillip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) as he's called in to care for a very rich, and very infirm, old man's wild daughters.  To give away more in any sort of detail would require pages of text.  Suffice to say that Marlowe's investigation uncovers a virtual laundry list of Los Angeles bad behavior, from shady gangsters to crooked gambling, drugs to blackmail, pornography and murder.  Oh yeah, plenty of murder.  In fact, so convoluted is the story that in both the book and the movie one of the murders is never even solved, but in the end no one really cares.  The work is that entertaining.

The movie was filmed for the most part in 1944 and, in 1945, a pre-release version of the film was shown to the Armed Forces and the film was subsequently shelved.  World War II was winding down, and the studios were intent on getting all their war related films out while interest in them was still strong.  The Big Sleep, a detective film, could be released at any point, so there was no real hurry to get it out.

Time passed, and the agent of Lauren Bacall (as noted in the excellent documentary on the differences between both films included within the DVD release), worried her career was in danger.  She appeared in only two films before The Big Sleep.  In the first, her performance was critically praised and featured her first pairing with her soon to be husband Humphrey Bogart (as well as The Big Sleep director Howard Hawks) in To Have and Have Not.  Her follow up performance in Confidential Agent, however, was critically panned and her agent worried that The Big Sleep, in its pre-release version, wouldn't do her career any favors.

He wrote letters to the film's producers pointing out his worries and asking them if it were possible to rework the film and improve on her character's interactions with Bogart.  The producer of the film agreed and, because there was no hurry to release the film, reshoots were approved.

Bogart and Bacall were willing to come back in to re-film, but insisted that director Howard Hawks also return.  So, a full year after finishing the film, the actors and director were brought back and new scenes were shot.  When all was said and done, the new version of the film features some eighteen minutes of alternate material as compared to the pre-release version.

The results, as they say, were historic.  Taking a cue from Bacall's performance in To Have and Have Not, her character in The Big Sleep was beefed up.  In fact, for the most part the re-shoots focused on exposing her character and her character's interactions with Bogart's Phillip Marlowe.  There was a very real and very sexy chemistry between these actors on screen (an interaction that had apparently bled into real life), and this new cut of the film, the theatrical cut, took full advantage of the heat they generated.

But that's not to say that the pre-release version of the film was a complete flop.  In fact, one could argue that the original version of the film does have its merits.  In particular, The Big Sleep's story in this version is a lot clearer.  However, the bottom line is that the original version of the film is good.  The extra scenes in the theatrical cut, however, make the film a classic.

You don't have to take my word for it.

The beauty of the DVD release of this film is the fact that we get to see both versions and can judge either film's merits for ourselves.