The Long Goodbye (1973), directed by Robert Altman, is a contemporary film noir adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel of the same name. The screenplay is by Leigh Brackett, who adapted The Big Sleep for the screen in 1946. The Long Goodbye features Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe, Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade, and Mark Rydell as Marty Augustine.
Unlike the novel, occurring in the 1950s, this cinematic version of The Long Goodbye occurs in the 1970s — a 1970s mirror of the lifestyle and culture of Hollywood. In their genres, the novel and the film are "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".[1]
Plot
Late one night, private investigator Philip Marlowe (Gould) is visited by his best friend, Terry Lennox (Bouton), who asks for a lift from Los Angeles to the California–Mexico border at Tijuana; he obliges. On returning home, Marlowe is awaited by two police department detectives, who, to him, accuse Terry Lennox of having murdered his rich wife, Sylvia Lennox. Marlowe refuses them answers, and they arrest him. After three days in jail, the police release him, because Terry Lennox committed suicide in Mexico; it is an open-and-shut case to the police and the press, but the “official facts” do not sit right with Marlowe.
Later, he is hired by Eileen Wade (Pallandt), the platinum-blonde trophy wife of Roger Wade (Hayden), an alcoholic novelist with writers' block, whose macho, Hemingway-like persona is proving self-destructive. She asks that he find her husband, who, despite such regular alcoholic binges and days-long disappearances, now seems to be missing. In the course of investigating Mrs Wade’s missing-husband case — visiting the sub-culture of private detoxification clinics for rich alcoholics and drug addicts — Marlowe learns that the Wades knew the Lennoxes socially, and that there is more to Terry’s suicide, and the murder of his wife, Sylvia.
Cast
Background
The story and plot of the 1973 cinematic adaptation deviate drastically from those of the 1953 novel; screenplay writer Leigh Brackett took many literary liberties with the story, plot, and characters of The Long Goodbye in adapting it; at story’s end, Philip Marlowe kills his best friend, Terry Lennox, in a major plot and character departure from the novel. The father of millionairess Sylvia Lennox is not in the film’s storyline; Roger Wade’s murder is a suicide in the film; and gangster Marty Augustine and his subplots are entirely cinematic creations.
The Long Goodbye satirises Hollywood stereotypes, opening and closing with the original version of the 1937 song "Hooray for Hollywood" in establishing mood, time, and place with an image of old Hollywood Hills architectural art, then panning to a dressed, sleeping Philip Marlowe in the 1970s; “Rip van Marlowe″ is a relic knight-errant from the 1940s transplanted to the contemporary world of the 1970s. In the event, under police interrogation, Marlowe, himself, alludes to the culture-shift, asking: “Is this where I’m supposed to say, 'What's all this about?', and he says, 'Shut up! I ask the questions'? ”, while smoking a cigarette; in health-conscious California, Marlowe lights a cigarette in his every scene, being the sole smoker among the characters.
"Rip van Marlowe" maintains his quintessential American iconography that Chandler first laid down in his novels. In addition to the 1948 Lincoln Continental Convertible Cabriolet that Marlowe drives, Gould also wears a tie with American flags on it (the tie looks plain red in the movie due to cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's post-flashing).[2]
One of the film's interesting experiments is the use of one theme song throughout, bookended by the 1930s "Hooray for Hollywood" track. The song "The Long Goodbye" is heard as a jazz theme, supermarket Muzak, Mexican funeral march, piano bar tinkling — wherever Marlowe goes, the song follows. In one scene we actually see a pianist in the midst of writing it.
Director Robert Altman anchors Marlowe in one of Hollywood's most unique, tucked-away landmarks: the distinctive High Tower Apartments on High Tower Drive, just south of the Hollywood Bowl, with its Italian tower in front containing an elevator.
For the story’s requisite, psychological effect of cultural dislocation, the Californian world of The Long Goodbye often is over-bright and washed out, its colours weak; Altman and Zsigmond to that effect photographed the film with flashed (delberately partially exposed) film stock, and through windows, a bird cage, et cetera. Originally, Altman's friend Dan Blocker was to play Roger Wade, but died before filming; The Long Goodbye is in memoriam to him.
Production
Producers Jerry Bick and Elliott Kastner bought the cinematic rights to The Long Goodbye (1953) novel and made a production deal with the United Artists distribution company. They commissioned the screenplay from Leigh Brackett, and asked Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich to direct it.[3] Both refused the offer, but Bogdanovich recommended Robert Altman, who, initially, was uninterested, until allowed to cast Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe — despite the producers’ original choices being Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin. Gould then was in professional disfavour because of some failed films, e.g. A Glimpse of Tiger, a job in which he bickered with co-star Kim Darby, fought with director Anthony Harvey, and acted erratically.[3] Consequently, he hadn't worked in two years; nevertheless, Altman convinced Bick that Gould suited the role. To wit, for the job, United Artists had Elliott Gould undergo the statutory employment medical examination and a psychological examination attesting his mental stability.
Altman based his screenplay research upon the Raymond Chandler Speaking letters collection, not the 1953 novel, and had the production team read them. In the article, “Robert Altman: American Innovator”, about the letters collection, he says: “But he [Chandler] used this thread to hang about sixty thumbnail essays on, so, the real interest in Raymond Chandler, to me, were those essays. We tightened the plot up; I dropped half the characters, probably; then I used that line to hang a bunch of film essays on”. The most significant change the director and the screenwriter effected was the story’s ending, Brackett remembers: “The original ending, the one in the novel, was pretty inconclusive, and didn’t please any of us, so, we thought we’d go for broke, and see what happened”.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack of The Long Goodbye features two songs, “Hooray for Hollywood” and the eponymous “The Long Goodbye”, composed by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. Every occurrence of that song is arranged differently, from hippie chant, to supermarket muzak, to radio music, effectively achieving the correct mood for the hero’s encounters with eccentric Californians, while pursuing his case. The score is on CD, released by Varese Sarabande, with John Williams’s Fitzwilly score.
Critical reception
Re-release poster by Jack Davis.
Initial reviews of The Long Goodbye were mixed, and income was poor, because of the unconventional story, plot, and character changes from the novel. Sight and Sound and Film Quarterly attacked the depiction of private detective Philip Marlowe: “one can not satirize or destroy a hero image until one defines it”. (Gerald Plecki, “Robert Altman”) Time's Jay 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"
Consequent to that initial, negative critical reaction, United Artists withdrew the film from distribution, then analyzed the reviews for six months, concluding the failure was the misleading advertising campaign promoting the movie as a "detective story" — emphasizing the “Raymond Chandler” and “Philip Marlowe” names — to a too-narrow cinephile audience, thus, a new, mainstream advert campaign; Altman explained: “I had to prepare audiences for a movie that satirizes Hollywood and the entire Chandler genre. So I went to Mad magazine, and asked Jack Davis, the artist, to come up with a cartoon approach”.United Artists spent $40,000, and the New York City première was profitably and critically successful. Vincent Canby noted: “Don’t be misled by the ads, The Long Goodbye is not a put-on. It’s great fun and it’s funny, but it’s a serious, unique work".
Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and praised Elliott Gould's "good 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". Ebert's opinion of the movie would later grow, as he eventually included it on his list of great films.
The film remained unpopular, and earned poorly in the rest of the U.S.; nevertheless, The New York Times listed The Long Goodbye in its “Ten Best List” for film for that year, while Vilmos Zsigmond was awarded the National Society of Film Critics’ prize as “Best Cinematographer”. Ebert later ranked it among his "Great Movies" collection and wrote, "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".Rotten Tomatoes rates the film 96% “Fresh”, based on 23 reviews.[4]
See also
References
External links
|
Films directed by Robert Altman |
|
| 1950s |
|
|
| 1960s |
|
|
| 1970s |
|
|
| 1980s |
|
|
| 1990s |
|
|
| 2000s |
|
|
