Synopsis
The Big Sleep (1978) is Michael Winner's take on Raymond Chandler, free to watch online on iFILM. Robert Mitchum plays private eye Philip Marlowe, hired by a frail, dying general who is being squeezed by a blackmailer.
One small gambling debt belonging to the general's wild younger daughter spirals into a tangle of cases, each leaving a fresh body behind. Marlowe moves between a rich family's mansion, a pornographer's racket and a few nervous gangsters, while two reckless sisters muddy every lead. Winner swaps Chandler's sun-bleached Los Angeles for the grey damp of 1970s England.
Around Mitchum stands a heavyweight British cast — Sarah Miles, James Stewart, Oliver Reed, Joan Collins. This is the second screen version after the 1946 Bogart classic, and the fun is in reading it against the original: same knotted plot, colder and far more frank. One for fans of slow-burn noir. Stream The Big Sleep (1978) online on iFILM.
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