The Big Sleep

1 9 7 8 (UK)

An ITC/ATV movie, directed by Michael Winner and based on the Raymond Chandler novel. Stars Oliver Reed as Eddie Mars, a Small-time gangster and owner of The Cheval Club. Philip Marlowe (Mitchum) is the American private detective working in London.  And business must be good - he drives a convertible Mercedes and wears a Rolex watch!

Retired American Army General Sternwood (Jimmy Stewart) hires Marlowe because he is being blackmailed. He has two daughters, Charlotte and Camilla, a nutter who poses for nude photographs with photographer's who get shot through the head (Geiger) 

Every road Marlowe takes seems to lead to a character by the name of Rusty Regan (the Irish husband of oldest daughter, Charlotte) . . . except it eventually turns out that loony Camilla shot him dead because he rejected her sexual advances.

John Mills co-stars as a Scotland Yard detective in this web of pornography, drugs & murder. Joan Collins also makes an appearance as Agnes, a "lady" who works at Geiger's bookshop which serves as a front for hard core porn.

The title refers to death . . .  "sleeping the big sleep", which is never far away when the Brown Man (with the gammy foot) is around!