Watched this again last night - I've seen it before but I felt like watching it again. I've read the book, which was also confusing. I think I read somewhere that Chandler cobbled it together from bits that he had written, with the result that it's stylish and atmospheric but the plot doesn't really make sense. Also that the screenwriters on the film asked him to explain the plot, and he couldn't. On top of that I think that some things seem to have been cut from the book's narrative - wasn't the Geiger character involved in some sort of porn racket, and wasn't Carmen Rutledge being blackmailed because the photos of her were porn? I didn't get that from the film, though I did have a few little sleeps of my own during it.
Despite all this I did enjoy it. I note in passing that Lauren Bacall was not conventionally pretty, and that Humphrey Bogart would be scrawny by the standards of today's Hollywood. The men all wear great suits and hats, the women - even the minor characters - wear great outfits.
Watched on BBC iPlayer via Chromecast.
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