ORIGINAL 1ST RELEASE R-46 LOBBY CARD FR. FILM NOIR CLASSIC THE BIG SLEEP (1946)

Description

The Big Sleep (Warner) is wakeful fare for folks who don't care what is going on, or why, so long as the talk is hard and the action harder. ---
James Agee, TIME Magazine, August 26, 1946
Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains.
You’re the second guy I’ve met today that seems to think a gat in the hand means the world by the tail. ---
Philip Marlowe to Joe Brody from the lobby card scene sequence in
The Big Sleep
From my personal collection for your consideration: an original first release 1946 (R-46) lobby card from the great Warner Bros. film noir classic
The Big Sleep
(1946), directed by Howard Hawks, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and based on the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name.
The pretzel-like plot makes keeping track of who's doing what to, or with, whom --- in just about every sense --- a 114-minute mind game. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that a chunk of the film was re-shot and re-cut --- in large part to pump up Bacall's role and to emphasize her on-screen chemistry with Bogart --- and that it had three screenwriters, William Faulkner, among them. And let's not forget Raymond Chandler's book itself.
For example, it seems that the writers couldn't figure out who killed a character after rechecking the novel, so they phoned Chandler. He angrily told them the answer was right there in the book and hung up. Chandler soon called back to say that he looked at the book himself and couldn't figure it out either. Ah well, Chandler was never big on tying up loose ends in his plots. In the end, as Hawks was said to realize --- and as film critic Agee pointed out --- audiences didn't care about the plot so long as they had a good time. And a good time
The Big Sleep
certainly is.
DESCRIPTION/CONDITION:
The 11” x 14” (27.94 x 35.56 cm) first release R-46 card shows Philip Marlowe (Bogart) trying to reassure Vivian Sternwood Rutledge (Bacall) while villain Joe Brody (Louis Jean Heydt) holds them at gunpoint. It is in Very Good condition --- especially for a 73-year-old temporary (at the time) theater-used advertising piece --- with the image still crisp and the colors still bright with no fading. It has all of its authenticating markings.
There are numerous pin holes in the borders and corners, with several in the background. A small (~ 1.00”/2.54 cm) stain is in the left border near the bottom corner and there is a small (~ 1.00”/2.54 cm) closed tear in the bottom border near the right corner, repaired with tape on the back. In addition, there is a very shallow crease along the left border, a faint scratch in Joe Brody's jacket and light age toning in the borders. Please see photo. All in all, nothing that really distracts from this scarce, beautiful card from a great film noir classic, honored with an induction into the U.S. National Film Registry in 1997.
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