Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
On its face it is small talk, but it is the film's way of showing the two men taking each other's measure. Sternwood's hothouse is a decaying, stifling world, and Marlowe's frank answer tells him this detective will not flatter a rich man. The question has become shorthand for noir banter, quoted whenever someone wants to sound hard-boiled about an odd hobby.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for The Big SleepShow the scene
Private detective Philip Marlowe has been summoned to the Sternwood mansion, and he is shown into the old general's steamy greenhouse, where orchids grow in sweltering heat. Sternwood, a paralysed millionaire, tells him he lives largely on heat, like a newborn spider, and that the orchids are an excuse for it. Then he asks Marlowe, 'Do you like orchids?' Marlowe answers with a flat 'Not particularly' and calls them nasty things, saying their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. Sternwood then asks about his past and, in the same scene, explains that someone is blackmailing him over his younger daughter.
Sources (1)
- The Big Sleep (1946) script (Springfield! Springfield!)Greenhouse scene with General SternwoodReference checked
Context reviewed
