On this day in movie history - The Big Sleep (1946 movie & novel):

The Big Sleep

directed by Howard Hawks,

written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman,

based on the novel by Raymond Chandler,

was released in the United States on August 23, 1946.
Music by Max Steiner.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Sonia Darrin, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Peggy Knudsen, Charles Waldron, Charles D. Brown, Bob Steele, Elisha Cook, Jr., Louis Jean Heydt, Trevor Bardette, Tommy Rafferty, Ben Welden, Tom Fadden, Theodore von Eltz.

Recommended reading:

The Big Sleep

By Raymond Chandler.

Published by Penguin.

First published 1939.

ISBN-10: 0241970776

ISBN-13: 978-0241970775

Description:

The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective, Philip Marlowe.

A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

In 1999, the book was voted 96th of Le Monde's "100 Books of the Century".

On this day in movie history - They Drive by Night (1940):

They Drive by Night

directed by Raoul Walsh,

written by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay,

based on the novel Long Haul by A. I. Bezzerides,

was released in the United States on July 26, 1940.

Music by Adolph Deutsch.

Cast:

George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Alan Hale, Roscoe Karns, John Litel, George Tobias, Henry O'Neill, Charles Halton, Paul Hurst, John Ridgely, George Lloyd, Joyce Compton, Charles Wilson, Pedro Regas, Norman Willis, Joe Devlin, William Haade, Vera Lewis, John Hamilton, Eddie Acuff, Howard Hickman, Lillian Yarbo.

On this day in movie history - Key Largo (1948):

Key Largo

directed by John Huston,

written by Richard Brooks and John Huston,

based on the play by Maxwell Anderson,

was released in the United States on July 16, 1948.
Music by Max Steiner.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Harry Lewis, John Rodney, Marc Lawrence, Dan Seymour, Monte Blue, William Haade, Jay Silverheels, Rodd Redwing.

On this day in movie history - The Big Shot (1942):

The Big Shot

directed by Lewis Seiler,

written by Bertram Millhauser, Abem Finkel and Daniel Fuchs,

was released in the United States on June 13, 1942.
Music by Adolph Deutsch.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Irene Manning, Richard Travis, Susan Peters, Stanley Ridges, Minor Watson, Chick Chandler, Joe Downing, Howard Da Silva, Murray Alper, Roland Drew, John Ridgely, Joe King, John Hamilton, Virginia Brissac, William Edmunds, Virginia Sale, Ken Christy, Wallace Scott, Leah Baird, Morgan Brown, Eddy Chandler, Cliff Clark, Clancy Cooper, Ralph Dunn, Thornton Edwards, Carl Faulkner, James Flavin, Gus Glassmire, Sol Gorss, William Gould, Creighton Hale, Henry Hall, Herbert Heywood, Dorothy Kelly, Donald Kerr, Wilbur Mack, Frank Mayo, Jack Mower, Wendell Niles, Frank O’Connor, Eleanor Parker, Don Phillips, Lee Prather, Jeffrey Sayre, Charles Sherlock, Walter Soderling, Harry Strang, Brick Sullivan, Ray Teal, Don Turner, Dale Van Sickel, Tom Wilson, Joan Winfield, Bill Wolfe, Victor Zimmerman.

On this day in movie history - In a Lonely Place (1950 movie & novel):

In a Lonely Place

directed by Nicholas Ray,

written by Andrew P. Solt and Edmund H. North,

based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes,

was released in the United States on May 17, 1950.
Music by George Antheil.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Martha Stewart, Jeff Donnell, Robert Warwick, Morris Ankrum, William Ching, Steven Geray, Hadda Brooks, Jack Reynolds.

Recommended reading:

In a Lonely Place

By Dorothy B. Hughes.

Filmed as In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray.

Published by NYRB Classics.

First published 1947.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1681371472

ISBN-13: 978-1681371474

Description:

Los Angeles in the late 1940s is a city of promise and prosperity, but not for former fighter pilot Dix Steele. To his mind nothing has come close to matching “that feeling of power and exhilaration and freedom that came with loneness in the sky.” He prowls the foggy city night – bus stops and stretches of darkened beaches and movie houses just emptying out – seeking solitary young women. His funds are running out and his frustrations are growing. Where is the good life he was promised? Why does he always get a raw deal? Then he hooks up with his old Air Corps buddy Brub, now working for the LAPD, who just happens to be on the trail of the strangler who’s been terrorizing the women of the city for months...

Written with controlled elegance, Dorothy B. Hughes’s tense novel is at once an early indictment of a truly toxic masculinity and a twisty page-turner with a surprisingly feminist resolution. A classic of golden age noir, In a Lonely Place also inspired Nicholas Ray’s 1950 film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart.