If you listen to the Filmspotting podcast you are familiar with their marathons. One of their recent marathons was on the Film Noir classics. After watching some great movies like Double Indemnity (1944) and the The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and some much lesser Noir films like Gun Crazy (1949) , I was burned out on the style for a while, but I was inspired to see The Big Sleep.
I waited a couple weeks for my batteries to recharge and am I ever glad I did. In many films that star real life couples, the characters they play often seem like burned out versions of themselves. Not here. Bogart and Bacall are simmering in every scene together.
The bodies pile up as William Faulkner's screenplay tries to make sense of Raymond Chandler's macguffins and red herrings, but in the end it is all good. We get the ending we want.