Review of The Long Goodbye (1973) by Mikey M — 16 Jan 2010
Cop-movies from the 70s... Foolish as I've been I kept telling myself, nah..are there possibly any good cop-movies from the 70s that I haven't seen, that are worth watching?
I know all of you out there are laughing at me right now. And guess what? I'm laughing too...
How come I haven't seen this before????????
Directed by Robert Altman, starring Elliot Gould, Sterling Hayden and Nina van Pallandt.
Very different from the earlier Phillip Marlowe-movies I've seen with Dick Powell and Humphrey Bogart for example. Though it opens with dynamic 1940s jazz (just to come into the right Marlowe-mood). But otherwise there isn't much film noir elements in it. Altman left the melancolism and synism to the 40s and tried to make something new out of it, and he really succeded.
Elliot Gould plays the private eye Philip Marlowe in this movie adaption of Raymond Chandler's last book.
Marlowe is streetsmart and cool but there is no woman in his life. He lives alone with a very picky cat, and in some way or other he always seems to get into trouble.
So his cat wakes him up in the middle of the night, meowing for food, so Marlowe gets up buys some food for the cat (not the cat's favorite label, though, so he'll refuse to eat anyway:). Then he meets his close friend, Terry who asks him for a lift from LA to Tijuana. He agrees to help him, and when he comes home is apartment is being reserched by the police. He is told that his friend has killed his wife and Marlowe is now suspected for helping him escape.
Three days later he gets released and the case is close, cause the police in Tijuana had found Terry dead.
Convinced that Terry was innocent of killing his wife, Marlowe goes on with his life and takes a new case; to find some alcoholic writer who had suddenly disappeared.
In the middle of everything people from the under world is after Marlowe, claiming that his friend had stolen money from them, before disappearing.
Let's see if you can spot a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger, in it! Or that is, you will most probably do since there wasn't many people looking that in the 70s, and he won't have any shirt on(!).
Five stars for the dialog and cinematography.
This is a great movie that I cannot believe I didn't watch until now. Highly recommended!
This review of The Long Goodbye (1973) was written by Mikey M on 16 Jan 2010.
The Long Goodbye has generally received very positive reviews.
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