Image Courtesy of impawards.com
Director
Robert Altman
Cast:
Elliott Gould … Philip Marlowe
Nina Van Pallandt … Eileen Wade
Sterling Hayden … Roger Wade aka Billy Joe Smith
Mark Rydell … Marty Augustine
Henry Gibson … Dr. Verringer
David Arkin … Harry
Jim Bouton … Terry Lennox
Warren Berlinger … Morgan
Jo Ann Brody … Jo Ann Eggenweiler
“It’s okay with me.” Elliot Gould as Phillip Marlowe
In 1939, Raymond Chandler published The Big Sleep, debuting one of American Crime Fiction’s most important and enduring characters, Phillip Marlowe. Chandler’s drinking, smoking, wisecracking, lovable loser of a private eye has been a fixture of Noir on the page and on screen for almost 70 years, with many distinguished actors taking up the mantle including Humphrey Bogart, Robert Montgomery, George Montgomery, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, Danny Glover, James Garner, and James Caan. Though Bogart’s is probably the most famous Marlowe, paired with Lauren Bacall in Howard Hawks’ 1946 classic The Big Sleep, my favorite version of the character manages to show just how timeless Marlowe is not.
In Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye Phillip Marlowe is a man out of step with his surroundings. Set in 1970’s Southern California, the film’s hero chain smokes while all around him eat health food and do yoga. He’s in a suit and tie while everyone else is in bell bottoms or leisure suits. Marlowe is a man alone, and yet, all Altman has really done is emphasize the themes that Chandler had already imbued the character with when he originally conceived his famous PI.
With Elliot Gould portraying Marlowe, the character is at his smart-aleck best, as Gould’s comic timing has perhaps never been better. There’s a real brilliance in this performance as Gould layers Marlowe in a protective shell of self aware jokes and a laid back mystique, guarding his loneliness and humanity, which comes through in his loyalty toward his friends and even his cat. Altman gives Gould plenty of room to inhabit this character and make it his own, often being the only person on camera, talking to himself while his cigarette slurs his speech.
There’s an amazing scene that was ad-libbed by Gould where he’s being questioned by the cops, and while the officer in his interrogation trying to be stern, Marlowe is making a farce of the whole situation. After being finger-printed, and then denied a towel to wipe the ink off, he starts putting his hand print every. He then starts putting dashes on his cheeks and mumbling about a “big game with Notre Dame” and then follows that up by smearing the ink all over his face and doing an Al Jolson routine. The scene is much more reserved than its description, and yet still hysterical in its refined mania.
Veteran Screenwriter Leigh Brackett also supplies her own bursts of hilarity as she constantly feeds Gould tons of self aware one-liners and quips. Another scene in which Marlowe is being shaken down by the cops has our hero stopping the detectives in their tracks as they try to strong arm him. Yelling at him to sit down they only manage to get “Is this where I’m supposed to say ‘What’s all this about?’ and he says ‘Shut up, I ask the questions’?” The entire movie is filled with this dialogue, making it a treat to just take the experience in and listen.
The plot, involving a murder that may or may not have been committed by a friend of Marlowe’s, is almost inconsequential compared to the mood and masterful direction by Robert Altman. There’s a sly commentary on American culture put in by Altman, as he surrounds our Noir-ish rogue with the milieu of the 1970’s excess. He also throws in sly references to the time period that produced the Marlowe’s of the past, bookending the film with Hooray for Hollywood as well as having the Ken Sansom character that keeps randomly popping up in the film with various impressions including one of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, perhaps the greatest noir film ever made.
Altman’s film is so fun and easy to take in, that its two moments of shocking and brutal violence absolutely takes you out of your seat. Both are incredibly shot and very sudden, the first putting the threat of that type of violence in the back of your mind for the rest of the film. Altman has complete power over you at this point, taking you with him and Marlowe as the plot twists and turns at a pace that will go from frantic to easy going back to frantic. It’s insane just how deft Altman’s mastery of Noir is here, making a movie that is the equal of his best work, including M*A*S*H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Is this a great movie though? I’ll put it this way; the movie is so enjoyable that I wish it were an additional four hours long. The film is an absolute delight from beginning to end, both reminiscent of the “personal film making” masterpieces of the 1970’s and the classic Noirs of Hollywood’s golden era. Robert Altman was one of the most amazing directors to have ever lived, and The Long Goodbye can counted among the director’s best.
