This ultra-witty romantic thriller from director Howard Hawks - the second screen pairing of real-life lovers Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall - is one of the great pleasures of the silver screen. Its original release was delayed to give Hawks time to exploit and build up the Bogie-Bacall scenes, and as a result the movie sizzles with sexual chemistry as each exchange hides a censor-baiting double or triple entendre. The Raymond Chandler plot is notoriously confusing, and ultimately irrelevant, but the delights are many: Martha Vickers's sexy Carmen ("She tried to sit in my lap when I was standing up"), Dorothy Malone's bookshop flirt and Elisha Cook Jr's sad fall guy. The pace never lets up, and the result is a timeless, much-loved classic.

Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.