I'll be damned if I ever figured out the plot, and I don't think Raymond Chandler and Howard Hawks ever did, either. So what? Bogie, Bacall, snappy patter, classy dames, and everyone smoked, since you were more likely to get plugged in the back than live long enough to get cancer....those were the days! The remake in 1978, with Mitchum (who made a pretty good Marlow) and Sarah Miles just didn't work, since they inexplicably transferred it all to England. And film noir just doesn't make it in color.