Verdict
Summary
The Long Goodbye is a constantly intriguing reboot of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe stories, but done in a grittier, more profane, and sexier 1970’s style. Gould is a hoot as Marlowe, but Altman’s meandering style is never focused enough to give the film a grounding sense of immediacy, and a sense of over length bogs the movie’s pace down a bit. Still, if you’re a fan of private eye movies or Marlowe interpretations, this is definitely worth a gander.
Plot:
Private eye Philip Marlowe is sucked into a case involving a friend who may have murdered his wife.
Review:
Perpetually hung over and apathetic to life, private detective Philip Marlowe (amusingly played by Elliot Gould) lives a cozy existence with his cat and a group home of hippie chicks that spend all their days doing yoga in the nude. For some, this could be considered heaven. For Marlowe, this is just the way it is. When he gets an unexpected visit from his friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton), he ends up giving him a midnight ride to Mexico, but when he returns in the morning, Marlowe is arrested by a pair of detectives and told that Terry murdered his wife and that Marlowe is being considered an accessory after the fact. This charge doesn’t stick, and instead of just sitting around, Marlowe does some poking around and gets hired by the wife of a washed up novelist (played by Sterling Hayden) to find her husband who might be a prisoner at an alcoholics anonymous clinic of some kind. Turns out the novelist is connected to his buddy Terry, but when Terry turns up dead in Mexico, Marlowe has a slew of questions to ask, especially when a gangster shows up at his door, demanding the money that Terry stole from him. With all this bad mojo stacked up against him, Marlowe is going to need to get to the bottom of it all … or find himself pushing up daisies when Terry’s bad choices come calling for him one last time.
From director Robert Altman and screenwriter Leigh Brackett (The Empire Strikes Back), The Long Goodbye is a constantly intriguing reboot of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe stories, but done in a grittier, more profane, and sexier 1970’s style. Gould is a hoot as Marlowe, but Altman’s meandering style is never focused enough to give the film a grounding sense of immediacy, and a sense of over length bogs the movie’s pace down a bit. Still, if you’re a fan of private eye movies or Marlowe interpretations, this is definitely worth a gander. A theme song sung by various performers plays incessantly on the soundtrack throughout the running time. John Williams did the understated score. Also, look fast for young Arnold Schwarzenegger in a very small role as a thug.
Kino Lorber has just reissued The Long Goodbye onto Blu-ray in a new 4K master, with an audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas, plus a bunch of special features ported over from previous releases, including a feature with both Altman and Gould. The film has never looked or sounded better, so if you’ve been holding onto the old DVD from MGM like I have, there has never been a better time to swap them out.
