The Book is a Weapon (14)
By:
January 23, 2010
Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) studies Famous First Editions at the Hollywood Public Library, in The Big Sleep (1946, d. Howard Hawks).
BOTTLE-BLONDE LIBRARIAN (Carole Douglas): “You know, you don’t look like a man who’d be interested in first editions.”
MARLOWE: “Well, I collect blondes in bottles, too.”
Marlowe cracks himself up outside A.G. Geiger’s Rare Books and Deluxe Editions, before disguising himself as a pedantic, effeminate bibliophile.
MARLOWE: You do sell books, hmmmm?
AGNES, THE SHADY SALESGIRL (Sonia Darrin): What do those look like, grapefruit?
MARLOWE: You know anything about rare books?
ACME BOOK SHOP PROPRIETRESS (Dorothy Malone, before she went blonde): You can try me.
Fourteenth in an occasional series.
Dorothy Malone as that book shop owner — wow! Much sexier *before* she takes off the glasses and lets down her hair, IMHO.
No H about it, glasses are a blatant seduction ploy, an invitation (in the enlarged iris) framed by a transparently coy refusal. Perhaps a Glennalysis of their role is in order?
A blog post on the use of the Hollywood Public Library in this film – http://librariesatthemovies.blogspot.com/2011/01/it-would-be-impossible-to-sleep-in-this.html