Long Goodbye

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Robert Altman is a controversial filmmaker, to say the least. Take, for instance, his 2001 Oscar-nominated production, "Gosford Park." Some people like myself found it funny, poignant, and endlessly fascinating, while others found it deadly dull and tedious beyond compare. It seems to be the way most of the man's films are greeted, with few viewers taking the middle of the road. But among all his output, I believe the most controversial film he's made was the PI yarn, "The Long Goodbye," from 1973, just a few years after his major theatrical breakout release, "MASH," and following "Brewster McCloud," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," and "Images."

Critics either damned "The Long Goodbye" as a travesty of the old-line private-eye genre championed by authors like Chandler, Hammett, Macdonald, and Spillane or praised it to the skies for its creativity and innovation; there was little in-between. The truth to this reviewer, however, does lie near the center. It is not the disaster its severest judges deem it, nor is it among the director's best work. I've given it a 7/10 entertainment rating; fair enough, I think, for a film that should not be regarded as a detective classic but should definitely be seen and evaluated on its own terms. It's a marginal recommendation from me, so let me explain why.

The story is based on Raymond Chandler's popular 1953 detective novel of the same name, which, surprisingly, had never been made into a movie before Altman got hold of it. But Altman didn't want to do a period piece, and therein lay the trouble for a lot of viewers. Altman changes the story in three significant ways. First, he updates the time setting from the early fifties to the early seventies when the movie was made. The reason he does this, Altman tells us in an accompanying interview, is to show us the reactions of a traditional fifties personality, L.A. private-eye Philip Marlowe, to the more liberated, swinging seventies. Second, he cast Elliott Gould as Marlowe, a role usually reserved in the movies for actors like Humphery Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, George Montgomery, James Garner, James Caan, and Powers Boothe, who brought tough, world-weary characteristics to the part.

Gould, on the other hand, is laid-back and nonchalant, a passive observer of the scene despite a flippant, wisecracking attitude. Third, there's the movie's ending, which even made me, the first time I saw it, say, "Whoa, Marlowe wouldn't have done that!" But this time around, the ending seemed perfectly natural and perfectly in line with everything the director had established about the character previously. It may not be Chandler, but it is most certainly Altman.

So, this is not a movie for confirmed and longtime fans of Raymond Chandler. If you count yourself among them, the film will probably only frustrate you. Be forewarned. Yet, if you keep an open mind, you'll be rewarded by a fairly entertaining piece of storytelling.

Interestingly, the script is by Leigh Brackett, one of several writers who also collaborated on the adaption of Chandler's "The Big Sleep" in 1946. So it's not like the screenwriter didn't know what she was doing. Of course, the knock against "The Big Sleep" has always been how hard it was to follow, but that's not really the case here. This plot moves so slowly it hardly ever matters. Put it this way, the plot line of "The Long Goodbye" never gets in the way of the story. Fact is, we don't much care about what's going on so much as we care about Marlowe's reactions to things. Like most of Altman's movies, this one is a series of set pieces with a myriad of characters weaving in and out like a crazy quilt. The overall design of the quilt isn't as important as the individual pieces, although by the time it's finished everyone in the movie is seen to be involved with everyone else.

There is a plot, to be sure. In the middle of the night a friend of Marlowe's named Terry Lennox (played by ex-baseballer Jim Bouton) calls to say he needs a ride to Mexico to get away from his wife. Marlowe obliges an old buddy, and the next day Marlowe is hauled into jail for aiding and abetting a murderer. Seems Lennox killed his wife and fled. But Marlowe is released a few days later when the police learn that Lennox committed suicide. Case closed for everyone but Marlowe, who doesn't believe his friend could either have killed his wife or killed himself. Marlowe has an old-fashioned sense of justice and wants to clear his late buddy's name.

Along the path of his investigation, Marlowe runs into the standard assortment of crime-story colorful characters, which undoubtedly was a major attraction for Altman, whose movies always feature a large supporting cast of eccentric folk. Among the people Marlowe encounters are a Hemingway-like, alcoholic writer, Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden); his beautiful, young wife, Eileen Wade (Nina Van Pollandt); a vicious gangster and big-time gambler, Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell, taking time out from directing his own films); one of Augustine's dim-witted henchmen, Harry (David Arkin); the squirrelly head of a convalescent hospital, Dr. Verringer (Henry Gibson); and several noted actors in uncredited bit parts, like David Carridine as a jail inmate and a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger as a muscle-bound hood. These characters are far more important for who they are than for anything they do or say, and expect Altman's typical prodding of his actors to be (or at least appear to be) improvisational, too.

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