the big sleep (hawks, 1946)

This time I made myself pay attention to the scene where two thugs give Marlowe a beating - this is just before Elisha Cook shows up. Hawks made it clear that this wasn't a pair of know-nothing amateur crooks; he takes their footwork and efficiency as seriously as anything else in any of his movies. When Harry Jones (Cook) says to Marlowe that the working-over was "about the best I've ever seen," you believe him.