given to work with, the actors don’t seem engaged". Janet Maslin of The New York Times described the film as "senselessly gaudy" and "overloaded with big names, and in this case the net effect of an all-star cast is to make an already confusing mystery even harder to follow". Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and wrote: "All of the zigs and zags of the original story are in the remake; what's missing is the enthusiasm. Talented actors such as Edward Fox and Oliver Reed sleepwalk through their parts." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times panned the film as "a flat, routine procedural detective mystery utterly devoid of any film noir atmosphere". Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote: "The production is handsome, but in the updating and relocation a lot has been lost." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote: "Everything is out of whack in this transposition of Chandler's material. The actors seem to be going through the motions, but they look wrong, sound wrong and inhabit the wrong settings." John Pym of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that the location and time change had "destroyed the crucial geographical and temporal context of Chandler's novel; almost every aspect of the narrative now seems ludicrously out of place". He added that Winner "ploughs step by step through the complicated plot with a curious lack of interest in, among other things, the nature of his hero's character". Home media The Big Sleep has been released twice on DVD: Artisan Home Video (now Lionsgate) under license from Carlton Media (successor in interest to ITC Entertainment) on April 30, 2002 as a Region 1 fullscreen DVD. Shout Factory, under license from ITV Studios (successor in interest to ITC Entertainment and Carlton Media) on September 23, 2014 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD. The Big Sleep was released in high-definition on Blu-ray by Shout Factory on February 20, 2018 as part of a two movie package along with Farewell, My Lovely (1975 remake). Both the 1946 version (featuring Humphrey Bogart) and this version have been released on Blu-ray. References Further reading Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 32–33. External links 1978 films 1978 crime films British crime films British neo-noir films Films based on American novels Films based on mystery novels American detective