Disc Reviews

The Long Goodbye Blu-ray Review

• 8th Dec 2013

In Hollywood during the 1970s there was quite the appetite for nostalgia crime movies with the likes of Chinatown (1974), The Late Show (1977) and Robert Mitchum’s two turns as Philip Marlowe. One of the earlier films was Robert Altman’s go at Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye made in 1973. The opening scene shows Marlowe (played by Elliott Gould) waking in a rather spartan looking bedroom to feed his cat. Altman stated that he wanted the whole film to give the impression that Marlowe awakes after 20 years to a world he no longer understands. His neighbours are some young women who spend most of the time nude, practicing yoga or getting high. Marlowe just seems to roll with the punches and accepts this. There are a couple of other elements that support this old school character from a bygone era: he drives a 1940s car and he chain smokes; the only other people who smoke in the film are those smoking weed in a health conscious California. When we are introduced to Marlowe he is busy looking for the particular cat food brand that his cat will only eat and when he doesn’t find it the cat walks out. A short while later Marlowe meets up with his friend, Terry Lennox who asks Marlowe to drive him down to the Mexican border. Not really asking any questions Marlowe obliges only to find himself arrested when he gets home for aiding and abetting a fugitive wanted for murder. Terry Lennox is wanted for questioning over his wife’s murder. Marlowe believes his friend to be innocent. Once released from jail after the police claim that Lennox has been found having committed suicide in Mexico, Marlowe is hired by the alluring Eileen Wade (played by little known Danish actress, Nina Van Pallandt) to find her alcoholic writer husband (Sterling Hayden). It soon becomes clear that there is a connection between the Wades, Lennox and a violent hood called Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell).

By updating the story from 1940/1950s LA to the 1970s creates some interesting ideas. But this did not prove to be particularly popular with the public who pretty much turned away from the picture. On an accompanying documentary on the DVD Altman believes that the public had so long attached Humphrey Bogart to Philip Marlowe that this aided the films poor critical reception and box-office receipts. Since though the film has become something of a cult film ripe from a new evaluation and reception. One of Altman’s skills as a director was to allow the actors just to ‘be’ and this film is a good example of that as Gould is given free range to sleepwalk his way through the 1970s in his part and to ad lib. Hayden too as the abusive alcoholic troubled husband of Eillen Wade also brought a lot of his own ideas to the part (the part was originally intended for Don Blocker who had played TV’s Hoss Cartwright in ‘Bonanza’ but died before the film was shot). The first shots with the cat are key to understanding the plot which was made even clearer in one of the film’s posters which read: “I have two friends in the world. One is a cat. The other is a murderer.” Having said this Gould’s mumblings to himself become a little irritating and his constant chain smoking trite, but the film does develop nicely to a good ending with Altman’s camera never keeping still. A couple of other interesting FYIs are the two uncredited performances of David Carradine as Marlowe’s cell mate and later in the film one of Augustine’s thugs played by a young muscle bound Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his first film rolls.

Also on the disc are a couple of good documentaries, one about the making of the film and another looking at the career of Robert Altman which includes interviews with the man himself, Gould and Shelley Duvall. Both documentaries give a good insight into the film and the career of Altman helping for a greater appreciation of the film long overdue. Surprising, therefore, there is not a commentary for the film.

Chris Hick