Femme Fatale appearance (Lauren Bacall, Selma Blair, etc.), Bogart in The Big Sleep

Selma Blair, photoshoot by Nicholas Moore for Arena magazine, September 2008

Selma Blair in a photoshoot posing like a 40's femme fatale

Lauren Bacall plays Vivian Rutledge in "The Big Sleep" (1946)

"Vivian tries to disturb Marlowe’s investigation, she has no interest in Marlowe finding out what happened to her husband Rusty Regan. She even uses her sexuality to seduce Marlowe, which is a typical move for the beautiful, dangerous femme fatale to make, but he can withstand. From her appearance and her behaviour Vivian seems to be a femme fatale, but in the end of the novel we learn that she is not, because she lacks one important feature of the femme fatale: She does not do it for herself, but to protect her father from the knowledge that he raised a murderer and Carmen from being imprisoned. In contrast, the femme fatale is egoistic, she wants freedom, wealth and independence and she stops at nothing to achieve this goal"
-"Women in Film Noir" by Janey Place

"When Vivian leaves Eddie Mars' gambling house in reel 8, another retake was inserted. The scene where Marlowe rescues Vivian from a robbery exists in both the 1945 and the 1946 versions, but in the 1946 version, both Bogart and Bacall are more relaxed and the scene plays better. Reel 9 of the 1946 version has a scene between Marlowe and Carmen that is priceless; she sucks her thumb and attempts to bite Marlowe.
The true manic and childish nature of Carmen is shown". Source: www.imagesjournal.com

"Marlowe’s neurotic alienation, his fears about loss of agency, about violations of self and fragmenting identity are expressions of characteristically modernist anxieties.” Horsley suggests that Chandler’s novels “shift the focus of his thrillers away from wider socio-political disorder and corruption, and towards terrors that are more inward". For Horsley, Chandler’s take on Modernism was shown by Marlowe’s apparent aversion to personal relationships and to sex, with the representations of the femme fatale. For Marlowe, the violations of the self feared by Modernist writers are those of a sexual nature, of physical violation by manipulative women.Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart and Martha Vickers on the set of "The Big Sleep" (1946)

Horsley also suggests that perhaps the way Marlowe is repeatedly knocked unconscious had links to a loss of control and this is the type of fragmentation he fears most. Marlowe describes a sexual encounter with Eileen Wade as follows: 'Then she treshed about and moaned. This was murder. I was as erotic as a stallion. I was losing control'. In The Big Sleep, Marlowe finds Carmen Sternwood naked in his bed. He becomes revolted and angry, saying "I couldn’t stand her in that room any longer" -"The Noir Thriller" by Lee Horsley and Paul Auster’s deconstruction of the traditional hard-boiled detective narrative in The New York Trilogy by Dan Holmes

"A cut of The Big Sleep as it stood in 1945 is said to show both Martha Vickers as the younger sister and Dorothy Malone as the bookstore manager stealing the spotlight from Bacall. Before the film was released in 1946 the studio had Vickers's sexy scenes cut and more glamorous, sympathetic shots of Bacall inserted, building up the relationship between the big sister and Marlowe.The Big Sleep is closer to the novel than you might expect of Hollywood, a film you want to go on and on, despite the intricacies of plot. You want to see Bogart continue to play Marlowe in adaptations of the rest of Chandler's books. Too bad this didn't happen.Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe in "The Big Sleep" (1978)

This success led to a re-filming of The Big Sleep (1978) around Mitchum a few years later. But what a difference. Mitchum is now hitting sixty. (I think Marlowe in the novel is supposed to be about thirty-eight.) But worse, the period has been updated from the 1940s to the then-present (1970s). And, far worse, the setting has been moved from the mean streets of Los Angeles to the civilized lanes of Britain. Yes, Marlowe is now a gumshoe in swinging London.
But Chandler-Marlowe just doesn't work in 1970s England. And in sunshiny colour! The brooding moodiness is gone. Marlowe's no slumming angel but a solidly middle-class citizen. The sex and pornography themes are truer to the book, thanks to the more enlightened times, but the scandal attached to them is gone".
Source: www.editoreric.com

"The Big Sleep, published in 1939, was the first of seven Philip Marlowe novels written by Chandler. Over the years, six of them have been adapted into films (several more than once): The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The High Window, The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, and The Long Goodbye. Only Playback, Chandler's final Marlowe book, has never made it to the screen. Marlowe, the hard-drinking loner with a sharp one-liner for any situation, has been played by the likes of George Montgomery, Robert Montgomery, Elliot Gould, Robert Mitchum (twice), James Garner, James Caan, and Bogart. Of all of these portrayals, Bogart's is easily the most memorable, and if you ask any movie-lover who the real cinematic Marlowe is, the answer will be immediate and unqualified". Source: www.reelviews.net

R.I.P. Anne Francis, Private detectives

R.I.P. Anne Francis (Born: Ann Marvak) September 16, 1930 in Ossining, New York, USA - Died: January 2, 2011 (age 80) in Santa Barbara, California, USA
"Anne Francis: The Life and Career" [Paperback book] biography, written by Laura Wagner - published by McFarland & Company you can pre-order it, release date on 31st May, 2011.

Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times: "A shapely blond with a signature beauty mark next to her lower lip, Francis was a former child model and radio actress when she first came to notice on the big screen in the early 1950s.
She had leading or supporting roles in more than 30 movies, including Bad Day at Black Rock, Battle Cry, Blackboard Jungle, The Hired Gun, Don't Go Near the Water, Brainstorm, Funny Girl and Hook, Line and Sinker."
Known to many for her outstanding performances as Honey West and for her role in the Forbidden Planet; countless movies and television programs for over 70 years she leaves behind a legacy. Aside from being a pioneer for women in television Anne was also the first single woman to adopt a baby (Maggie) in 1970;
"Anne Francis, who costarred in the 1950s science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet and later played the title role in Honey West, the mid-1960s TV series about a sexy female private detective with a pet ocelot, died Sunday." Source: mubi.com

In the tradition of private detectives, Philip Marlowe has been arguably the most emblematic one, specially impersonated by Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep" and by Dick Powell in "Murder, My sweet".
Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe and Claire Trevor as Mrs.Helen Grayle/Velma Valento in "Murder, My Sweet" (1944)

"A dozen actors have impersonated Marlowe on film, radio and TV, and Chandler, whose ideal exponent would have been Cary Grant, thought Bogart the best. In a 1946 letter to his British publisher, he said: "Bogart is so much better than any other tough-guy actor. As we say here, Bogart can be tough without a gun. Also he has a sense of humour that contains that grating undertone of contempt."
Finally, The Big Sleep is invariably described as a film noir, a term coined by French critic Nino Frank in 1945 when a flood of dark Hollywood thrillers made during the war eventually arrived on Parisian screens after the four years of German occupation. Nearly 40 years passed before the term became current in the English-speaking world. The time of day in The Big Sleep is appropriately night, with rain and fog the dominant climatic conditions. But the influence of German expressionism is absent, there's no hard-boiled narration, no angst-ridden hero, no distorted camera angles, no nightmares, no ominous shadows, no flashbacks. Bogart and Bacall's exchanges are wittily playful, and the only femme fatale is a minor though crucial figure who destroys that perennial noir fall-guy, Elisha Cook Jr. But it's unmissable, irresistible". Source: www.guardian.co.uk

"Hammett’s effect on this popular form is unmistakable, even today, but many of his contemporaries openly admitted his influence. Such notable and popular authors as Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald and Ian Fleming credited their inspiration to Hammett. Raymond Chandler, commenting on his influence and popularity, summed up his feelings when he wrote: "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it . . . he put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily use for these purposes".

Although detective fiction on the whole does not usually have well developed characters, The Maltese Falcon does. There are only a few characters in the book, and several of them are classics. Sam Spade is the prototype tough-guy. Another major character is Brigid O’Shaugnessy —a stunning beauty that can never tell the truth. She seems to always get her way with every man she meets, but she can never fool Sam Spade. Spade takes her to bed when she offers herself, and rather cleverly does a strip search that was really not necessary. She is perhaps the most vivid of Hammett’s cast.
There are several points that distinguish The Maltese Falcon and other hard-boiled novels from other works of detective fiction. First, clues are generally not as important as how they are found, and what they lead to". Source: www.urbinavolant.com

"Once Murder, My Sweet proved a hit, Jack Warner gave director Howard Hawks $50,000 to buy the rights to Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep. Hawks called up Chandler and asked him if he'd like to see Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe. Chandler was as tickled as a kid at Christmas, and Hawks paid him five grand for the book rights, pocketing the remaining loot most probably to underwrite one hell of a hunting trip. Chandler and Hammett, like their hard-boiled alter egos, were soft when it came to money. Hammett got a decent payday for the film rights to The Maltese Falcon, but then spent years legally wrangling to regain control of the character of Sam spade, not wanting to believe he'd sold off the name forever. When Chandler signed on as a studio writer in the Forties, he was so overwhelmed by his weekly retainer it never dawned on him to ask for what other, lesser, writers were earning.
Although Dick Powell did a fine job in Murder, My Sweet, he couldn't quite conceal his bouncy, hoofer's energy beneath a rash of stubble and a rumpled suit. He came off more petulant than world-weary. Closer to the real Chandler, perhaps, but wide of the romantic ideal. On the other hand, "Bogart was the genuine article", Chandler bubbled in anticipation of his Marlowe incarnation. Robert Mitchum, who enjoyed a noir revival in the Seventies, portrayed Philip Marlowe in remakes of Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and a British version of The Big Sleep (1978)". --EDDIE MULLER, from Dark City "The Lost World of Film Noir"

Anthony Boucher once said (in New york Times Book Review, 5 August 1951) about 'The Way Some People Die' that it was "the best novel in the tough tradition I've read since 'Farewell, My Lovely' (1940) and possibly since 'The Maltese Falcon' (1930)".

Love Affair (1932) - Young Humphrey Bogart - Airplaine and Car scenes

Humphrey Bogart as Jim Leonard and Dorothy Mackaill as Carol Owen in "Love Affair" (1932)

Love Affair is a 1932 romantic drama film starring Dorothy Mackaill as an adventurous socialite and Humphrey Bogart as the airplane designer she falls for.

Video: Jake Gyllenhaal's Friendly Jabs at Natalie Portman at Palm Springs Film Festival

Ben Affleck asks Jennifer Garner to call him "chairman," Jake Gyllenhaal teases Natalie Portman, and Carey Mulligan shares a sweet hug with Andrew Garfield in the top must-see moments from the 2011 Palm Springs Film Festival.
Source: rush.popsugar.tv

Jake Gyllenhaal compliments Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman, for Miss Dior Cherie perfume ad.

Jake Gyllenhaal out for a jog in his Livestrong tracksuit in Hollywood on 8th January 2011

Jake Gyllenhaal out with Natalie Portman in NYC on 22nd May 2006

"Jake Gyllenhaal, who briefly dated Natalie in 2006, recently showered the “Black Swan” beauty with compliments — even comparing her to one of America’s most beloved film stars.
Jake Gyllenhaal with Natalie Portman at the 22nd Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival on 8th January 2011

“Natalie is the Audrey Hepburn of our generation,” Jake said on Saturday, before awarding the actress with the Desert Palm Achievement Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, according to People. “She is elegant, graceful, has amazing eyebrows … is talented, really short, funny, smart, dedicated, incredibly kind.”
“She’s a vegan, which makes it really frustrating when you’re picking a place to eat,” Jake laughed. “She’s also recently announced that she’s going to be a mom, and her child will probably need therapy after seeing ‘Black Swan’.As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, Natalie is feeling very “lucky” these days with a new fiancé, a stellar performance in “Black Swan”, which has sparked loads of award buzz and a baby on the way.
Natalie Portman & Ashton Kutcher ‘No Strings Attached’ Portraits

“The apocalypse is coming so, I figured, get it all in before 2011 is out,” Natalie joked with Access’ Shaun Robinson at a junket for her new film, “No Strings Attached”, on Friday of her exciting year. “I feel very lucky. It’s been a really, really lucky, lucky time.”
Source: www.accesshollywood.com