In a letter to publisher Hamish Hamilton, Raymond Chandler praised Howard Hawks’s film adaptation of The Big Sleep and Humphrey Bogart’s performance as Philip Marlowe:
“When and if you see The Big Sleep… you will realize what can be done with this sort of story by a director with the gift of atmosphere and the requisite touch of hidden sadism. Bogart, of course, is also so much better than any other tough-guy actor that he makes bums of the Ladds and the Powells. As we say here, Bogart can be tough without a gun. Also he has a sense of humor that contains that grating undertone of contempt. Ladd is hard, bitter and occasionally charming, but he is after all a small boy’s idea of a tough guy. Bogart is the genuine article.”
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