Review of The Long Goodbye (1973) by Stephen M — 06 Mar 2008

My favourite Robert Altman film, this enraged many a Raymond Chandler purist when it came out, but it's probably the most intelligent Chandler adaptation ever made. Besides reinvigorating a first-rate murder-mystery, by adopting a contemporary setting and audaciously altering several of the book's key plot developments, Altman and screenwriter Leigh Brackett create a perceptive commentary on moral bankruptcy in the 1970s. Whereas a 1940s or 1950s Terry Lennox would have been innocent of his wife's murder because, as Philip Marlowe's friend, he could be trusted implicitly, the 1970s Terry Lennox is not only capable of murder, but also has no scruples about directing a vicious, double-crossed hoodlum and a police investigation Marlowe's way.

The one anachronism here is Elliot Gould's Philip Marlowe, and not just because he drives a vintage car and wears a suit--albeit rumpled--at all times. Beneath the grubby facade of a chain-smoking, apathetic slob, he is every bit as morally centred as Chandler's creation: he doesn't work divorce cases, he cannot accept Lennox's/Augustine's dirty $5000 bill and, most tellingly, he's prepared to step outside the law to punish the man who escaped justice by betraying their friendship.

"The Long Goodbye" is a wonderfully playful film. There are jokey references to screen legends of the classic Hollywood era, and John Williams and Johnny Mercer's title song is reworked delightfully throughout, even appearing as supermarket Muzak and a doorbell chime. Elliott Gould makes the most of the best role of his career, Sterling Hayden is larger than life and Henry Gibson is very creepy as a 'drying-out' clinician, but film director Mark Rydell steals the acting honours as the gangster Marty Augustine. Simultaneously hilarious and unsettling, he's far more terrifying than, for example, Joe Pesci is in "GoodFellas" because he's controlled and calculating rather than just an apoplectic hothead. I cannot recommend this film strongly enough. Tell your friends it's Arnold Schwarzenegger's best movie; I do!