Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The scattershot magic of Robert Altman, December 2, 2003
There are so many good ideas and concepts at work in this film. Here are a few: 1: In the DVD Special Features, Director Robert Altman talks about his overall concept for this film. His problem was how does a filmaker take a character that is so much from a different era and place him in modern times? Altman came up with a conceptual framework: look at the film as though Philip Marlowe, Chandler's ace detective from the 1940's, has been sleeping for thirty years and wakes up in the 1970's. Altman called it his "Rip Van Marlowe" concept. He thought of the film this way because he wanted to place the classic 1940 Marlowe sense of integrity and ethical code in the free-wheeling Seventies. This idea is ingenious and fits Eliott Gould's hip but outsider acting style to a tee. 2: Altman keeps the camera moving at all times. The lens does not jerk around in a mise en scene way, but more with long, smooth tracking and pan shots. This gives the movie a great feeling of constant action and forward movement, even when folks are just talking. The camera movement is done in such a smooth way, it seems very natural - as if you, the viewer, were really watching the action and simply turning your head to follow the flow of life. 3: The movie theme song is beautiful and was written by Johnny Mercer. It has a classic feel, and it dominates the sound of the film. Altman has put this haunting melody everywhere; in the sound of a doorbell, in the tune played in a Mexican funeral, in songs that come over half-heard radios - everywhere. It is the song the small time lounge piano player is trying to learn in the background of one scene, and it is the song that you will find yourself humming once the film is over. All this is almost done on a subliminal level, and it is brilliant. 4: The casting is tremendous and original. Elliott Guild is perfect as the man that seems out of place and almost lackadaisical on the surface, yet has a steel hard code of ethics that he lives by even - especially when - no one else does. Jim Bouton, the ex baseball star and writer of Foul Ball, is cast as Marlowe's friend, and he is a treat to watch - all smarmy smile and charm. Another Altman favorite, Henry Gibson of Laugh-In fame is around as the reptilian Dr. Verringer and Sterling Hayden booms through his tragic turn as the Hemingway-like writer Roger Wade. Everyone is very good. Watch for two cool cameos: David Carradine as a hip-talking anti-establishment inmate that Marlowe meets in a short stay in prison, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (that's right, governor Schwarzenneger) as a wordless muscle bound enforcer. I really love this movie. As a director, Robert Altman gives actors more room than any other director in film history. He lets them, as he says in the DVD special features, "do what they became actors to do: be creative." This has its pluses and minuses, but it could, in some films, really make magic. There is a "lifelike" quality to the best of Altman's work, which is to say some of the best moviemaking ever done. I am thinking about Nashville and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, both films that linger and gain power in memory. I will not give the end away, but it is worth waiting for and a real surprise. It is the moment in the film when the fairy-dust and dope smoke of the 70's is stripped away to reveal Gould/Marlowe's adamantine core; a center constructed around a very tight code of loyalty and integrity. Do yourself a favor and buy it.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great & Twisted Take On Marlowe, September 14, 2002
What director, Robert Altman did with "The Long Goodbye" is what he does best. He takes either a subject or genre and turns it inside out, until it becomes something completely different. He has done this to everything from the myths of the old West ("McCabe & Mrs. Miller") to most recently, the old standbye of the English drawing room murder("Gosford Park").In "The Long Goodbye" Altman works his movie magic on Raymond Chandler's private eye, Phillipe Marlowe.In this film Altman plops the iconic 40's & 50's detective (masterfully played by Elliot Gould) right into the middle of 1970s, Southern California.The plot is the usual labyrinth, that you would expect a Chandler character to be in. Marlowe's good friend, Terry Lennox mysteriously drops by and asks the detective for a ride to Mexico. Days later he winds up dead from an apparent suicide.Meanwhile, Marlowe is hired by the wife of an alcholic writer, in a missing persons case.Is there some how a connection between all these events?Along the way the movie viewer gets the fun of following Marlowe, as he meets tough guy cops, psychotic gangsters,a quack doctor, even a cult of naked yoga enthusiasts.Gould reinvents the character and plays him as a figure who is an anachronism, a man lost in time. He wanders the landscape in a haze, mumbling smart remarks and nonsequiturs.He is a man who is preplexed by the antics and lifestyles of the modern world.Everytime he is confronted by 1970s California weirdness, he responds with the mantra "its O.K. by me".Not only is his cheap suit and car decades old, but so are his values and that famous moral code that he lives by.But in the twisted surprise ending of the film, it is those values and moral codes that he sticks by.This is a really great film, that humourously turns the Marlowe legend upside down.Gould really shows us his acting chops and gives a great performance.He is backed up with a wonderful supporting cast(Henry Gibson, Nina Van Pallandt, Mark Rydell, Jim Bouton) that gives us some amazingly crazy characters.Especially good is veteren actor, Sterling Hayden as the drunken, Hemingway-like author. Hayden gives a very vigorous and moving portrayle of a man at the end of his emotional rope.Finally a mention should be made of the movie's theme song. The Mercer/Williams tune is played throughout the film in many weird and different ways, that are too many to list.Keep an ear out for them.This is a simply great movie that will fascinate and entertain.What would Humphery Bogart think, if he saw all of this? I think Bogie would have had a good laugh...
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quirky, Atmospheric, Unique Altman Spin to Chandler!, April 23, 2007
I admit, when I first viewed "The Long Goodbye", in 1973, I didn't like the film; the signature Altman touches (rambling storyline, cartoonish characters, dialog that fades in and out) seemed ill-suited to a hard-boiled detective movie, and Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe? No WAY! Bogie had been perfect, Dick Powell, nearly as good, but "M.A.S.H.'s" 'Trapper John'? Too ethnic, too 'hip', too 'Altman'!
Well, seeing it again, nearly 34 years later, I now realize I was totally wrong! The film is brilliant, a carefully-crafted color Noir, with Gould truly remarkable as a man of morals in a period (the 1970s) lacking morality. Perhaps it isn't Raymond Chandler, but I don't think he'd have minded Altman's 'spin', at all!
In the first sequence of the film, Marlowe's cat wakes him to be fed; out of cat food, the detective drives to an all-night grocery, only to discover the cat's favorite brand is out of stock, so he attempts to fool the cat, emptying another brand into an empty can of 'her' food. The cat isn't fooled by the deception, however, and runs away, for good...
A simple scene, one I thought was simply Altman quirkiness, in '73...but, in fact, it neatly foreshadows the major theme of the film: betrayal by a friend, and the price. As events unfold, Marlowe would uncover treachery, a multitude of lies, and self-serving, amoral characters attempting to 'fool' him...with his resolution decisive, abrupt, and totally unexpected!
The casting is first-rate. Elliott Gould, Altman's only choice as Marlowe, actually works extremely well, BECAUSE he is against 'type'. Mumbling, bemused, a cigarette eternally between his lips, he gives the detective a blue-collar integrity that plays beautifully off the snobbish Malibu 'suspects'. And what an array of characters they are! From a grandiosely 'over-the-top' alcoholic writer (Sterling Hayden, in a role intended for Dan Blocker, who passed away, before filming began), to his sophisticated, long-suffering wife (Nina Van Pallandt), to a thuggish Jewish gangster attempting to be genteel (Mark Rydell), to a smug health guru (Henry Gibson), to Marlowe's cocky childhood buddy (Jim Bouton)...everyone has an agenda, and the detective must plow through all the deception, to uncover the truth.
There are a couple of notable cameos; Arnold Schwarzenegger, in only his second film, displays his massive physique, as a silent, mustached henchman; and David Carradine plays a philosophical cellmate, after Marlowe 'cracks wise' to the cops.
The film was a failure when released; Altman blamed poor marketing, with the studio promoting it as a 'traditional' detective flick, and audiences (including me) expecting a Bogart-like Marlowe. Time has, however, allowed the movie to succeed on it's own merits, and it is, today, considered a classic.
So please give the film a second look...You may discover a new favorite, in an old film!
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