| The Long Goodbye | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Robert Altman |
| Screenplay by | Leigh Brackett |
| Based on | The Long Goodbye byRaymond Chandler |
| Produced by | Jerry Bick |
| Starring | Elliott Gould Nina van Pallandt Sterling Hayden |
| Cinematography | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Edited by | Lou Lombardo |
| Music by | John Williams |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 112 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.7 million[1] |
| Box office | $959,000 |
The Long Goodbye is a 1973 Americansatiricalneo-noir film directed byRobert Altman, adapted byLeigh Brackett fromRaymond Chandler's 1953 novelof the same name. The film starsElliott Gould asPhilip Marlowe along withNina van Pallandt,Sterling Hayden,Mark Rydell,Henry Gibson,David Arkin, andJim Bouton, and has an early, uncredited appearance byArnold Schwarzenegger.
The story's setting was moved from the 1940s to 1970sHollywood. The film has been called "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."[2][3]
United Artists released the film on March 7, 1973. It received mixed to positive reviews upon release, but its critical assessment has grown over time.[4] In 2021, theLibrary of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5]
Down-on-his-luckprivate eyePhilip Marlowe leaves hisLos Angeles apartment to buy cat food. After he returns, his close friend Terry Lennox arrives and begs Marlowe for a ride toTijuana, Mexico. Marlowe notices scratches on Terry's face, and Terry admits he is in trouble.
After Marlowe returns from Mexico, the police arrest him, explaining that Terry has been accused of killing his wife Sylvia and that Marlowe may be an accomplice. Marlowe spends three days in jail, but is released after Mexican authorities report that Terry has committed suicide in Mexico and admitted to killing his wife in a suicide note. Marlowe refuses to believe his friend could have done these things.
Eileen Wade hires Marlowe to find her missing husband, Roger Wade, a macho, alcoholic, and self-destructive novelist. Marlowe learns that the Wades were the Lennoxes' neighbors inMalibu Colony. He finds Roger at a rehab clinic and brings him home, but before they leave, the clinician, Dr. Verringer, demands payment for his services and vows to see Roger again.
Local gangster Marty Augustine and his henchmen visit Marlowe in his apartment. They rough him up and demand that he help recover $355,000 that Augustine hired Terry to deliver to his associates inMexico City. To underscore the threat, Augustine smashes a glass bottle into his mistress's face. Once Augustine and his henchmen leave, Marlowe follows them to the Wades' house, where he sees Eileen and Augustine having a heated conversation. This leads him to conclude that the Wades are connected to the Lennoxes' deaths.
Marlowe decides to investigate the Wades and visits them again. Roger worries that Eileen no longer loves him. To deter Marlowe from competing for Eileen's affections, he boasts to Marlowe that Augustine owes him $50,000. Later on, Eileen says that it is actually Roger who owes Augustine money.
Marlowe travels to Mexico, but the Mexican police stick to their story. He returns to Malibu, where the Wades are hosting a party. Dr. Verringer crashes the party, once again demanding payment and slapping Roger. Although Roger drunkenly insults him, he cannot stand being humiliated in front of his friends. He pays Dr. Verringer and ends the party. Later that night, he walks into the ocean to commit suicide. Eileen and Marlowe rush into the water after him, but cannot save him.
Hoping that Terry is still alive, Marlowe theorizes that Roger was having an affair with Sylvia and killed her to hide his infidelity, forcing Terry to flee the country until Marlowe can reveal the truth. He badgers Eileen, who reluctantly confirms his theory. Marlowe asks the police to reopen the Lennox investigation; they dismiss his theory, but confirm that Roger met with Sylvia before going to rehab.
Marlowe receives a goodbye letter signed "Terry", with a rare$5,000 bill enclosed. Marlowe meets Augustine in his office, where upon discovering the $5,000 bill, Augustine grows suspicious, noting that the money Terry was delivered consisted of three $5,000 bills. Augustine parades his bandaged mistress in front of Marlowe and threatens to cut his genitalia off, but Terry's money arrives in the nick of time, and Augustine lets Marlowe go and gives him the $5,000 bill for his troubles. Marlowe glimpses Eileen driving away. He runs after her, but she does not acknowledge him. During his pursuit, he is hit by a car. He wakes up in a hospital and is given a miniature harmonica by a heavily bandaged patient in the next bed. He finds that Eileen has disappeared.
Marlowe returns to Mexico, where he bribes local officials with the $5,000 bill. The official admits that a man with another $5,000 bill paid him to fake Terry's suicide. Marlowe finds Terry in a Mexican villa. It turns out that Marlowe's instincts were wrong and the cops were right. Terry explains that while there was in fact a Lennox–Wade affair, it was actually Terry who was sleeping with Eileen. Roger discovered the affair and disclosed it to Sylvia, who confronted Terry. Terry then killed Sylvia during a violent argument.
Terry gloats that no one cares about the case anymore since he islegally dead and Augustine got his money back. Marlowe asks Terry why he framed him as a suspect, but Terry dismissively calls Marlowe a loser. In response, Marlowe fatally shoots Terry.
As Marlowe walks away, he passes Eileen, who is driving to meet Terry. She is shocked to see him in Mexico, and realizes that Terry's secret is out. Having obtained his revenge, Marlowe happily plays the harmonica while strolling down the road.
It took a number of years for a film ofThe Long Goodbye to be made, although a television production withDick Powell was released in 1954.[8] On Chandler's death in 1959, the only of his Marlowe novels that had not been made into films wereThe Little Sister,The Long Goodbye, andPlayback.Playback remains unadapted.
In October 1965 it was announced that producersElliott Kastner andJerry Gershwin held the rights toGoodbye and would film it the following year in Los Angeles and Mexico.[9] In 1967, producerGabriel Katzka had the rights.[10] He wanted to make it as a follow-up to the adaptation ofThe Little Sister (which becameMarlowe).[11]Stirling Silliphant, who wroteMarlowe, wrote a script, but the film was not made and MGM let its option lapse.[12] Kastner and producer Jerry Bick bought the rights back and made a production deal withUnited Artists to finance a film.[13] Chandler's books were selling as well in the early 1970s as they had while he was alive.[14]
The producers commissioned a screenplay from Leigh Brackett, who had been Kastner's client when he was an agent and had written the script for theHumphrey Bogart version ofThe Big Sleep. Brackett:
set the deal with United Artists, and they 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 didThe 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.[15]
Brian G. Hutton, who had made a number of movies for Kastner, was originally attached as director and Brackett says Hutton 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.[15]
The script deviates markedly from Chandler's novel; Brackett took many liberties with the story, plot, and characters. In the film, Marlowe kills his best friend, Terry Lennox. Lennox did kill his own wife, because she discovered he was having an affair with Eileen, and he admits this to Marlowe. Neither Sylvia Lennox, her sister, nor her father appears in the film; Roger Wade commits suicide, rather than being murdered; and gangster Marty Augustine and his subplots are additions to the film. Bernie Ohls, Marlowe's sometime friend on the LAPD, is also absent.
The film quotes from the novel when Marlowe, under police interrogation, asks, "Is this where I'm supposed to say, 'What's all this about?' and he [the cop] says, 'Shut up! I ask the questions'?"[16]
Throughout the film are stylistic nods to the Chandler novels and 1950s American culture. Marlowe drives a 1948Lincoln Continental convertible Cabriolet, in contrast with the contemporary cars others drive. Marlowe alsochain smokes in the film, in contrast with a health-conscious California; no one else smokes on screen.
A "making-of" featurette on the DVD is titled "Rip van Marlowe", a reference to the characterRip Van Winkle, to emphasize the contrast between Marlowe's anachronistic 1950s behavior and the film's 1970s setting.[17]
The producers offered the script to bothHoward Hawks andPeter Bogdanovich to direct. Both declined, but Bogdanovich recommended Robert Altman.[13] 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 ofA Glimpse of Tiger, in which he bickered with costarKim Darby, fought with directorAnthony Harvey, and acted erratically. Consequently, he had not worked in nearly two years; nevertheless, Altman convinced Bick that Gould suited the role.[13] United Artists had Gould undergo the usual employment medical examination, and apsychological examination attesting to his mental stability.[18] In January 1972 it was announced that Altman and Gould would make the film.[19] Altman called it "a satire in melancholy".[20]
Brackett had problems with Chandler's plot, which she felt was "riddled with cliches", and faced the choice of making it a period piece or updating it.[21] Altman received a copy of the script while shootingImages inIreland. He liked the ending because it was so out of character for Marlowe. He agreed to direct as long as the ending was not changed.[22] Brackett recalled meeting Altman while he was makingImages: "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."[15] Altman and Brackett spent a lot of time discussing 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, awakened, and was wandering around Los Angeles in the early 1970s but "trying to invoke the morals of a previous era".[23]
Brackett said her first draft was too long, and she shortened it, but the ending was inconclusive.[21] She had Marlowe shooting Terry Lennox.[24] Altman made several changes to the script, like having Roger Wade commit suicide and having Marty Augustine smash a Coke bottle across his girlfriend's face.[24] Altman said, "it was supposed to get the attention of the audience and remind them that, in spite of Marlowe, there is a real world out there, and it is a violent world".[25] "Chandler fans will hate my guts", Altman said. "I don't give a damn."[14]
Many of the film's roles were unconventionally cast.Jim Bouton was not an actor; he was a formerMajor League Baseball pitcher and the author of the bestselling bookBall Four.Nina van Pallandt was best known at the time as the ex-lover of writerClifford Irving, who had written a fake autobiography ofHoward Hughes that turned into a major scandal.[26]Mark Rydell had an acting background, but was better known as the director of films likeThe Cowboys andThe Reivers.[27]Henry Gibson, who was then best known for his work in the comedy ensemble ofRowan and Martin's Laugh-In, was cast as Dr. Verringer.[27]
In May 1972 it was announced thatDan Blocker would appear.[28] He was cast as Roger Wade, but died before filming started. The film is dedicated to his memory in the closing credits. In JuneVilmos Zsigmond was confirmed as cinematographer.[29]
Near the end of the film, during a scene in which Marlowe meets with Marty Augustine, Augustine orders everyone to strip andArnold Schwarzenegger appears in briefs in a non-speaking role as a thug working for Augustine;[30] Schwarzenegger did not receive screen credit for this appearance.
Altman did not read all of Chandler's book and instead usedRaymond Chandler Speaking, a collection of letters and essays, copies of which he gave the cast and crew, advising them to study the essays.[24] The opening scene with Marlowe and his cat came from a story a friend of Altman's told him about his cat only eating one type of cat food. Altman saw it as a comment on friendship.[22] He decided that the camera should never stop moving and put it on a dolly.[31] The camera movements counter the characters' actions so that the viewer feels like a voyeur. To compensate for Southern California's harsh light, Altman gave the film a soft pastel look reminiscent of postcards from the 1940s.[31]
Altman had Gould and Hayden ad lib most of their dialogue because, according to the director, Hayden was drunk and stoned onmarijuana most of the time.[24] Altman was reportedly thrilled by Hayden's performance. Altman's home in Malibu Colony was used as Wade's house. "I hope it works", Altman said during filming. "We've got a script but we don't follow it closely."[14]
As a reference to the American iconography of Chandler's novels, Marlowe wears a tie withAmerican flags on it (the tie looks plain red in the movie due to Zsigmond'spost-flashing).[17]
The soundtrack ofThe Long Goodbye features two songs, "Hooray for Hollywood" and "The Long Goodbye", composed byJohn Williams andJohnny Mercer. It was Altman's idea to have every occurrence of the latter song arranged differently, from hippie chant to supermarketmuzak to radio music, setting the mood for Marlowe's encounters with eccentric Californians while pursuing his case.[32]
The Long Goodbye was previewed at the Tarrytown Conference Center inTarrytown, New York.Judith Crist, then the film critic forNew York magazine, hosted the gala.[25] The film was not well received by the audience, except for Nina van Pallandt's performance. Altman attended a question-and-answer session afterward, where the mood was "vaguely hostile", reportedly leaving the director "depressed".[25]The Long Goodbye was not well received by critics during its limited release in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Miami.[1][25] The New York opening was canceled at the last minute after several advance screenings had already been held for the press. The film was abruptly withdrawn from release with rumors that it would be reedited.[25]
Studio executives analyzed the reviews for months, concluding that the reason for the film's failure was the misleading advertising campaign in which it had been promoted as a "detective story". They spent $40,000 on a new release campaign that included a poster byMad magazine artistJack Davis;[1][33] the new poster contained caricatures and comic book word balloons to underline the film as a satire.[27] When the film screened on TV in 1977, ABC cut Marlowe's shooting of Lennox.[34]
MGM Home Entertainment released the film on DVD on September 17, 2002.[35]Varèse Sarabande released selections from Williams's score on a CD in 2004 paired with the album rerecording of Williams's music fromFitzwilly; in 2015 Quartet Records issued a CD entirely devoted toThe Long Goodbye.
Contemporaneous reviews complained of Altman's handling of the noir genre and Gould's portrayal of Marlowe.Time magazine'sJay Cocks wrote, "Altman's lazy, haphazard putdown is without affection or understanding, a nose-thumb not only at the idea of Philip Marlowe but at the genre that his tough-guy-soft-heart character epitomized. It is a curious spectacle to see Altman mocking a level of achievement to which, at his best, he could only aspire".[36]Charles Champlin of theLos Angeles Times found the film "quite sleek, marvelously and inventively photographed ... The problem is that the Altman-Brackett Marlowe, played by Elliott Gould, is an untidy, unshaven, semiliterate, dim-wit slob who could not locate a missing skyscraper and would be refused service at a hot dog stand. He is not Chandler's Marlowe, or mine, and I can't find him interesting, sympathetic or amusing, and I can't be sure who will."[37] Gary Arnold ofThe Washington Post wrote that the film "is not a movie version of the Chandler mystery that anyone with a liking for Chandler could possibly enjoy ... If you are not prepared to shuffle along from scene to pointless, protracted scene with klutzy old Elliott, there will be little to occupy your time or offset your annoyance."[38]
Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and praised Gould's performance, "particularly the virtuoso ten-minute stretch at the beginning of the movie when he goes out to buy food for his cat. Gould has enough of the paranoid in his acting style to really put over Altman's revised view of the private eye".[39]Gene Siskel also liked the film and gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars, calling it "a most satisfying motion picture" with Gould displaying "surprising finesse and reserve" in his performance, though he faulted the "convoluted and too quickly resolved plot".[40]
WhenThe Long Goodbye was rereleased, reviewerVincent Canby wrote, "it's an original work, complex without being obscure, visually breathtaking without seeming to be inappropriately fancy".[41]Pauline Kael's review inThe New Yorker said the film was "comic and melancholy"[42] and called the film "a high-flying rap on Chandler and the movies", hailed Gould's performance as "his best yet", and praised Altman for achieving "a self-mocking fairy-tale poetry".[43]
Despite her effusive endorsement and its influence on younger critics,The Long Goodbye was relatively unpopular and did poorly at the box office in the rest of the U.S.The New York Times included it on its Ten Best List for film that year and Zsigmond was awarded theNational Society of Film Critics' prize for Best Cinematographer.[44] Ebert later ranked it among his Great Movies collection, writing, "Most of its effect comes from the way it pushes against the genre, and the way Altman undermines the premise of all private eye movies, which is that the hero can walk down mean streets, see clearly, and tell right from wrong".[45]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "An ice-cold noir that retains Robert Altman's idiosyncratic sensibilities,The Long Goodbye ranks among the smartest and most satisfying Marlowe mysteries."[4] OnMetacritic, the film has a score of 87 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[46]
| Institution | Year | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Society of Film Critics[47] | 1973 | Best Cinematography | Vilmos Zsigmond | Won |
| San Sebastián International Film Festival | 1973 | Golden Shell | Robert Altman | Lost toTerrence Malick forBadlands |
In the 1990s and 2000s, Altman and Gould envisioned a sequel toThe Long Goodbye calledIt's Always Now, which would have featured an older version of Marlowe. Though he did not specify which Chandler story would be used, Gould said it was "obscure", written beforeThe Big Sleep, and did not involve Marlowe specifically, though Chandler's estate said they could use the character. Gould drafted a synopsis and was seeking financing and screenwriters before Altman died in 2006.[48][49]
Notes
Bibliography
