Bacall to arms...

Here's the crown jewel from a great movie. "The Big Sleep" just shouldn't work. It's a disaster. Even Raymond Chandler himself admited he couldn't work out the plot. And yet it does work. Somehow its cinematic chaos is strangely lifelike and its abundant charms keep it airborne.

If you're curious about the song "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine," it was a hit the year the film was made (1944) by the hardboiled jazz bohemian Anita O'Day. Her rough and raw autobiography seems worth a read.