Review of The Long Goodbye (1973) by Cliff N — 27 May 2010

Obscure movie review:

Yesterday I re-visited Robert Altman's 'The Long Goodbye', Its still a good movie. 1973 was a year for great movies so its easy to see why this got overlooked, especially since the studio chose to market it as a comedy. It was not well received by the public since it wasn't 'Bogarts Marlowe'. Even so it ended up on the New York Times list of 10 best films for the year and managed to re-boot Altmans career as a director. The film is also loaded with trivia:

* The first two directors set for the film turned it down, Elliot Gould was selected to star in the picture to entice Robert Altman to be interested in the film. Because of set problems on another movie Gould hadn't worked in two years and the studio required him to submit to a medical and psychological exam before they would sign him.

* First movie appearance of Morris the Cat.

* Early appearance of Arnold Schwarzeneger.

* The car used in the film is Elliott Goulds personal car.

* The film is dedicated to Dan Blocker (Bonanza) as he was originally cast as the Hemingway like author but died before filming started. Sterling Hayden played the character. Previously he appeared in Dr StrangeLove and The Godfather. He was to have played Quinn in Jaws but had to stay out of the country due to problems with the IRS. He said, this was the first film he had been in that he could stand to watch.

* The beach house used in the film is Robert Altmans house.

* Since its an Altman film a lot of the dialogue is ad-libed, especially all the dialogue between Marlowe and the author.

* The script writer was the original writer for 'The Big Sleep' staring Bogart & Bacall, although for this film she detours significantly from the original book, instead of following it completely she used a published collection of Chandlers notes and essays. She also did the original script for The Empire Strikes Back.

* Henry Gibson shows up as a blackmailing psychiatrist.

* There are no static shots in the film, the camera is always moving. Common today but a new technique in 73.

* There are only two songs in the movie, 'Hooray for Hollywood' and the 'The Long Goodbye' All the other music is a different arrangement of 'The Long Goodbye'.

* The film director used a technique called 'flashing' to mute the colors in the movie, ordinarily its only used with short sequences but here it was used for the whole movie. BTW if this ever turns up on Blu-Ray your getting screwed, all the sharp detail is washed out of the film.