WHO IS SLEEPING THE BIG SLEEP?

WHO IS SLEEPING THE BIG SLEEP? That is a trivia question that my brother Elmer likes to pose. The answer is given in the last paragraphs of Raymond Chandler’s book THE BIG SLEEP: Rusty Regan, the chauffeur, is sleeping the Big Sleep. Who killed him? I raise the question because in this weekend’s Financial Times, the story is retold about how Howard Hawks, when he was directing the movie, sent a telegram to Raymond Chandler, asking who had killed the chauffeur. Chandler “famously wired back: “No idea.’” The story is indeed famous. The imdb website has a Frequently Asked Question: Who shot the chauffeur? Its answer is: “Neither the movie nor the book tells. It’s rumored that even author Raymond Chandler had no idea when that question was put to him by the screenwriters. Those who have seen the movie and/or read the book are split over it being (1) Brody, (2) Lundgren, or (3) the chauffeur killed himself.” The story is wrong. In the last pages of the book, Philip Marlowe confronts the killer and then explains, in classic fashion, what happened.