The Long Goodbye

Dir: Robert Altman

1973

*****

Robert Altman's take on Raymond Chandler's classic Philip Marlowe novel is a wonderful neo-noir and about as Altman-esque as it gets. Elliott Gould's Philip Marlowe is slightly erratic, at odds with his surroundings and mumbles under his breath rather than boom out confidently. Altman and screenwriter Leigh Brackett spent a lot of time talking over the plot. Altman wanted Marlowe to be a loser. He even nicknamed Gould's character Rip Van Marlowe, as if he had been asleep for 20 years, had woken up, and was wandering around Los Angeles in the early 1970s but "trying to invoke the morals of a previous era." It is a huge contrast from the original novel, very much a 70's reinvention of the 50s version that keeps the core of the story but changes many aspects of it at the same time. It may not sound like it but there is an authenticity about the story, and the fact that the screenplay was written by Leigh Brackett who co-wrote the screenplay for 1946's The Big Sleep goes some way in underlining this. Producers Jerry Bick and Elliott Kastner bought the cinematic rights to the novel and made a production deal with the United Artists distribution company. They commissioned the screenplay from Leigh Brackett, who had been Kastner's client when he was an agent, she was the obvious choice because of her talent and her work on the original. However, she was reluctant at first, saying: "United Artists had a commitment for a film with Elliott Gould, so either you take Elliott Gould or you don't make the film. Elliott Gould was not exactly my idea of Philip Marlowe, but anyway there we were. Also, as far as the story was concerned, time had gone by—it was twenty-odd years since the novel was written, and the private eye had become a cliché. It had become funny. You had to watch out what you were doing. If you had Humphrey Bogart at the same age that he was when he did The Big Sleep, he wouldn't do it the same way. Also, we were faced with a technical problem of this enormous book, which was the longest one Chandler ever wrote. It's tremendously involuted and convoluted. If you did it the way he wrote it, you would have a five-hour film". She also said later that Brian G. Hutton was originally attached as director and wanted the script structured so that "the heavy had planned the whole thing from the start" but when writing it she found the idea contrived and didn't work. The producers then offered the script to both Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich to direct it. Both refused the offer, but Bogdanovich recommended Robert Altman. There is a story that United Artists president David Picker may have picked Gould to play Marlowe as a ploy to get Altman to direct. At the time, Gould was in professional disfavor because of his rumored troubles on the set of A Glimpse of Tiger, in which he bickered with costar Kim Darby, fought with director Anthony Harvey and acted erratically. Consequently, he had not worked in nearly two years; nevertheless, Altman convinced Bick that Gould suited the role. Elliott Gould had to undergo a medical examination and a psychological examination attesting to his mental stability before he could be cast. Gould's Philip Marlowe is incredibly cool, no more cool than Humphrey Bogart's Marlowe, just cool in a totally different way. Once described as "a study of a moral and decent man cast adrift in a selfish, self-obsessed society where lives can be thrown away without a backward glance and any notions of friendship and loyalty are meaningless", it really is a stark contrast to the original 50's movie. It is fair to say that Leigh Brackett took a few literary liberties with the original story, plot and characters in her adaptation, the story's climactic conclusion being the biggest and most striking. Fans of the original might not think much of the overall style of the film but the ending packs a punch that surely all Raymond Chandler purists cannot resist, indeed it was the ending that finally bagged Altman as director, his only condition being that they didn't change it. Brackett recalled meeting Altman while doing Images. "We conferred about ten o'clock in the morning and yakked all day, and I went back to the hotel and typed all the notes and went back the next day. In a week we had it all worked out. He was a joy to work with. He had a very keen story mind." Altman's adaption satirizes the changes in society between the 50s, when the private-detective genre was popular and the 70s, when crime films were very different in style. There are many intentional contrasts to the two versions, for example, one cliché of the genre invoked in the film is culled from the novel when Marlowe, under police interrogation, asks, "Is this where I'm supposed to say, 'What's all this about?' and he says, 'Shut up! I ask the questions'?", also, Marlowe's chain smoking (Gould had to smoke in ever single scene), contrasted with a health-conscious California, in which no one else in the movie smokes, is another example of his incongruity. The American iconography that Chandler expressed in his novels is maintained in the film though. In addition to the 1948 Lincoln Continental Convertible Cabriolet that Marlowe drives, Gould also wears a tie with American flags on it, just like in the novels. The performances are impeccable. It is one of Gould's finest performances, and Sterling Hayden, Nina Van Pallandt, Jim Bouton and Mark Rydell are all amazing in their complex characters, Bouton wasn't even an actor but a Baseball player! It's incredible to think that so much of it was off the cuff. When it came to the scenes between Philip Marlowe and Roger Wade, Altman had Elliott Gould and Sterling Hayden ad lib most of their dialogue because, according to the director, Hayden was drunk and stoned on marijuana most of the time anyway. Altman had originally wanted Dan Blocker for the role of Wade but he died just before principal photography began. He was reportedly thrilled by Hayden's performance, despite him being second choice to Blocker. You don't have to be particularly eagle-eyed to have spotted a young Arnold Schwarzenegger (in his underpants) in a small role as one of Mark Rydell's henchman. The film was panned by the critics of the time who mainly complained that the film was lazy. Now, I'm 50/50 with the works of Altman but this is probably his best film (along with M*A*S*H) and a huge cult classic. Elliott Gould has said that so long as he is physically able he holds out hopes that he could reprise the role of Phillip Marlowe one day. He has a screenplay entitled "It's Always Now," based on a Raymond Chandler story, "The Curtain." The Chandler estate sold him the rights to the story for just $1. How cool would that be?