In the dilapidated, overgrown, and run-down house, he broke through rotten floorboards to retrieve his butcher knife and the ""Myers"" mask.The fiancee""s father Judge Watson (Landers Stevens, the director""s own father) is irate that Lucky is already an hour late - he expected as much from his prospective son-in-law: ".Sternwood: I used to like mine with champagne.Champagne cold as Valley Forge and with about three ponies of brandy under it...I like o see people drink...You may take off your coat, sir...Too hot in here for any man who has any blood in his veins.You may smoke, too.I can still enjoy the smell of it.Nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.The emaciated Sternwood describes the dreariness of his existence.The humid hothouse is necessary for his survival and he is waiting for death - the "big sleep" of the title - in the temperature-controlled greenhouse:Sternwood: You are looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life - crippled, paralyzed in both legs, very little I can eat, and my sleep is so near waking that it""s hardly worth he name.[The beginning of the film""s action is set just before he turn of the century.]In the memorable opening, the screen is filled with an immense close-up of the face of sly, funny, witty, smart-ass, egotistical, and handsome Butch Cassidy [(Paul Newman) not identified as Butch until later in the film].