The Long Goodbye (film)

The Long Goodbye is a 1973 American satirical neo-noir film directed by Robert Altman and written by Leigh Brackett, based on Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel. The film stars Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe and features Sterling Hayden, Nina Van Pallandt, Jim Bouton, Mark Rydell, and an early, uncredited appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The story's setting was moved from the 1940s to 1970s Hollywood. The film has been called "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." In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot
Returning from a late-night trip to grocery store for cat food, Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) discovers his close friend, Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton), in his Los Angeles apartment. Lennox asks Marlowe for a ride to Tijuana as he is in a bit of trouble. Marlowe asks him about scratches on his face.

On his return from Mexico, Marlowe is met by two police detectives, who ask questions about Lennox, arresting him when he refuses to answer. During questioning, Marlowe learns that Lennox has been accused of killing his wife, Sylvia. After jailing him for three days, the police release Marlowe when they learn that Lennox has committed suicide in Mexico. Marlowe does not believe that Lennox killed either Sylvia or himself.

Eileen Wade hires Marlow to find her missing husband, Roger Wade, an alcoholic novelist with writer's block. His macho, Hemingway-like persona is proving self-destructive, resulting in days-long disappearances from their Malibu Colony home. Marlowe visits a private detoxification clinic for rich addicts. Finding Roger, he brings him home, learning that the Wades knew the Lennoxes socially. He suspects there is more to be learned about that connection.

Gangster Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell) interrogates Marlowe, demanding that he cough up the $355,000 Lennox was sent to deliver to Mexico City. Augustine destroys his girlfriend's face with a broken Coke bottle as a way of threatening Marlowe. Marlowe visits the Wades and learns from Roger that Augustine owes him $50,000.

Marlowe travels to Mexico, where officials corroborate the details of Lennox's death. He returns to a beach party at the Wade house. Doctor Verringer (Henry Gibson) shows up and demands payment of $4,400 from Roger on his bill from the clinic. The party breaks up and Roger walks into the ocean. Eileen and Marlowe chase him. Roger vanishes and is presumed to have drowned. Eileen tells Marlowe that Roger had been having an affair with Sylvia and might have killed her. Marlowe relays this to the police, who tell him that they already know that Roger met with Sylvia before going to the clinic.

Marlowe receives a goodbye letter signed "Terry" with a $5,000 bill in it. He is brought to a meeting with Augustine, who asks everyone to strip. Marlowe's wallet falls out, revealing the $5,000 note, which Augustine assumes must come from his loot. The missing money is then delivered to Augustine, who returns the $5,000 bill to Marlowe. Exiting, Marlowe sees Eileen driving away in her open-topped Mercedes-Benz 450SL. While running after her, he is struck by a car and hospitalized. Waking up, he is given a miniature harmonica by a heavily bandaged patient in the next bed. Returning to Malibu, he finds the Wade house being packed up by a real estate company and Eileen gone.

Marlowe returns to Mexico, where he attempts to bribe a local official with the $5,000 bill. The Mexican admits they were paid to fake Terry Lennox's suicide. Marlowe finds Terry in a Mexican villa. Terry admits killing Sylvia and that he is having an affair with Eileen. Roger had discovered the affair and disclosed it to Sylvia, after which Terry killed her in the course of a violent argument. Terry gloats that no one cares about the case anymore since he is legally dead and the $350,000 has been returned to Augustine.

Marlowe fatally shoots Terry. As he walks away, he passes Eileen, driving to meet Terry. She turns her head to look at him. Marlowe pulls out the harmonica and plays it while strolling down the road.

Cast

 * Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe
 * Nina van Pallandt as Eileen Wade
 * Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade
 * Mark Rydell as Marty Augustine
 * Henry Gibson as Dr. Verringer
 * David Arkin as Harry
 * Jim Bouton as Terry Lennox
 * Warren Berlinger as Morgan
 * Pancho Córdova as Doctor
 * Enrique Lucero as Jefe
 * Rutanya Alda as Rutanya Sweet
 * Jack Riley as Riley
 * Jerry Jones as Det. Green
 * John Davies as Det. Dayton
 * Ken Sansom as Colony Guard
 * David Carradine as Dave a.k.a. Socrates (uncredited)
 * Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hood in Augustine's Office (uncredited)

Development
It took a number of years for a film of The Long Goodbye to be made, although a television production was made in 1954 with Dick Powell. By the time of Chandler's death in 1959, his only Marlowe novels that had not been made into films were The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, and Playback. Playback remains unadapted.

In October 1965 it was announced that producers Elliott Kastner and Jerry Gershwin held the rights to Goodbye and would film it the following year in Los Angeles and Mexico.

In 1967, producer Gabriel Katzka had the rights. He wanted to make it as a follow-up to the adaptation of The Little Sister (which became Marlowe). Stirling Silliphant, who wrote Marlowe, wrote a script, but the film was not made and MGM let its option lapse.

Kastner and producer Jerry Bick bought the rights back and made a production deal with United Artists to finance a film. Chandler's books were selling as well in the early 1970s as they had while he was alive.

Leigh Brackett
The producers commissioned a screenplay from Leigh Brackett, who had been Kastner's client when he was an agent and had written the script for the Humphrey Bogart version of The Big Sleep. Brackett: "set the deal with United Artists, and they had a commitment for a film with Elliott Gould, so either you take Elliott Gould or you don't make the film. Elliott Gould was not exactly my idea of Philip Marlowe, but anyway there we were. Also, as far as the story was concerned, time had gone by—it was twenty-odd years since the novel was written, and the private eye had become a cliché. It had become funny. You had to watch out what you were doing. If you had Humphrey Bogart at the same age that he was when he did The Big Sleep, he wouldn't do it the same way. Also, we were faced with a technical problem of this enormous book, which was the longest one Chandler ever wrote. It's tremendously involuted and convoluted. If you did it the way he wrote it, you would have a five-hour film." Brian G. Hutton, who had made a number of movies for Kastner, was originally attached as director and Brackett says Hutton wanted the script structured so that "the heavy had planned the whole thing from the start" but when writing it she found the idea contrived.

The script deviates markedly from Chandler's novel. Brackett took many liberties with the story, plot, and characters. In the film, Marlowe kills his best friend, Terry Lennox. Lennox did kill his own wife, because she discovered he was having an affair with Eileen, and he admits this to Marlowe. Neither Sylvia Lennox, her sister, nor her father appears in the film; Roger Wade commits suicide, rather than being murdered; and gangster Marty Augustine and his subplots are additions to the film. Bernie Ohls, Marlowe's sometime friend on the LAPD, is also absent.

The film quotes from the novel when Marlowe, under police interrogation, asks, "Is this where I'm supposed to say, 'What's all this about?' and he [the cop] says, 'Shut up! I ask the questions'?"

Throughout the film are stylistic nods to the Chandler novels and 1950s American culture. Marlowe drives a 1948 Lincoln Continental convertible Cabriolet, in contrast with the contemporary cars others drive. Marlowe also chain smokes in the film, in contrast with a health-conscious California; no one else smokes on screen.

A "making-of" featurette on the DVD is titled "Rip van Marlowe", a reference to the character Rip Van Winkle, to emphasize the contrast between Marlowe's anachronistic 1950s behavior and the film's 1970s setting.

Robert Altman
The producers offered the script to both Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich to direct it. Both refused the offer, but Bogdanovich recommended Robert Altman.

United Artists president David Picker may have picked Gould to play Marlowe as a ploy to get Altman to direct. At the time, Gould was in professional disfavor because of his rumored troubles on the set of A Glimpse of Tiger, in which he bickered with costar Kim Darby, fought with director Anthony Harvey, and acted erratically. Consequently, he had not worked in nearly two years; nevertheless, Altman convinced Bick that Gould suited the role. United Artists had Gould undergo the usual employment medical examination, and a psychological examination attesting to his mental stability.

In January 1972 it was announced Altman and Gould would make the film. Altman called it "a satire in melancholy".

Brackett had problems with Chandler's plot, which she felt was "riddled with cliches", and faced the choice of making it a period piece or updating it. Altman received a copy of the script while shooting Images in Ireland. He liked the ending because it was so out of character for Marlowe. He agreed to direct as long as the ending was not changed.

Brackett recalled meeting Altman while he was doing Images. "We conferred about ten o'clock in the morning and yakked all day, and I went back to the hotel and typed all the notes and went back the next day. In a week we had it all worked out. He was a joy to work with. He had a very keen story mind."

Altman and Brackett spent a lot of time discussing the plot. Altman wanted Marlowe to be a loser. He even nicknamed Gould's character Rip Van Marlowe, as if he had been asleep for 20 years, woken up, and was wandering around Los Angeles in the early 1970s but "trying to invoke the morals of a previous era".

Brackett said her first draft was too long, and she shortened it, but the ending was inconclusive. She had Marlowe shooting Terry Lennox. Altman made several changes to the script, like having Roger Wade commit suicide and having Marty Augustine smash a Coke bottle across his girlfriend's face. Altman said, "it was supposed to get the attention of the audience and remind them that, in spite of Marlowe, there is a real world out there, and it is a violent world".

"Chandler fans will hate my guts", Altman said. "I don't give a damn."

Cast
Many of the film's roles were unconventionally cast. Jim Bouton was not an actor; he was a former Major League Baseball pitcher and the author of the bestselling book Ball Four. Nina Van Pallandt was best known at the time as the ex-lover of writer Clifford Irving, who had written a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes that turned into a major scandal. Mark Rydell had an acting background, but was better known as the director of films like The Cowboys and The Reivers. Henry Gibson was another odd choice, having just completed four years as a cast member of the TV comedy-variety series Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.

In May 1972 it was announced that Dan Blocker would appear. He was cast as Roger Wade, but died before filming started. The film is dedicated to his memory in the closing credits.

In June it was announced that Vilmos Zsigmond would be cinematographer.

Near the midpoint of the film, during a scene in which Marlowe meets with Marty Augustine, Augustine orders everyone to strip and we see Arnold Schwarzenegger in briefs portraying a thug working for Augustine. Schwarzenegger received neither screen credit nor lines in this appearance.

Filming
Altman did not read all of Chandler's book and instead used Raymond Chandler Speaking, a collection of letters and essays, copies of which he gave the cast and crew, advising them to study the essays. The opening scene with Marlowe and his cat came from a story a friend of Altman's told him about his cat only eating one type of cat food. Altman saw it as a comment on friendship. He decided that the camera should never stop moving and put it on a dolly. The camera movements counter the characters' actions so that the viewer feels like a voyeur. To compensate for Southern California's harsh light, Altman gave the film a soft pastel look reminiscent of postcards from the 1940s.

Altman had Gould and Hayden ad lib most of their dialogue because, according to the director, Hayden was drunk and stoned on marijuana most of the time. Altman was reportedly thrilled by Hayden's performance. Altman's home in Malibu Colony was used as Wade's house. "I hope it works", Altman said during filming. "We've got a script but we don't follow it closely."

As a reference to the American iconography of Chandler's novels, Marlowe wears a tie with American flags on it (the tie looks plain red in the movie due to Zsigmond's post-flashing).

Music
The soundtrack of The Long Goodbye features two songs, "Hooray for Hollywood" and "The Long Goodbye", composed by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. It was Altman's idea to have every occurrence of the latter song arranged differently, from hippie chant to supermarket muzak to radio music, setting the mood for Marlowe's encounters with eccentric Californians while pursuing his case.

Release
The Long Goodbye was previewed at the Tarrytown Conference Center in Tarrytown, New York. Judith Crist, then the film critic for New York magazine, hosted the gala. The film was not well received by the audience, except for Nina van Pallandt's performance. Altman attended a question-and-answer session afterward, where the mood was "vaguely hostile", reportedly leaving the director "depressed". The Long Goodbye was not well received by critics during its limited release in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Miami. The New York opening was canceled at the last minute after several advance screenings had already been held for the press. The film was abruptly withdrawn from release with rumors that it would be reedited.

Studio executives analyzed the reviews for months, concluding that the reason for the film's failure was the misleading advertising campaign in which it had been promoted as a "detective story". They spent $40,000 on a new release campaign that included a poster by Mad magazine artist Jack Davis.

MGM Home Entertainment released the film on DVD on September 17, 2002.

Varèse Sarabande released selections from Williams's score on a CD in 2004 paired with the album rerecording of Williams's music from Fitzwilly; in 2015 Quartet Records issued a CD entirely devoted to The Long Goodbye.

When the film screened on TV in 1977, ABC cut Marlowe's shooting of Lennox.

Reception
Though the film has been lauded by critics in the decades since its release, contemporaneous reviews complained of Altman's handling of the noir genre and Gould's portrayal of Marlowe. Time magazine'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". Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times found the film "quite sleek, marvelously and inventively photographed ... The problem is that the Altman-Brackett Marlowe, played by Elliott Gould, is an untidy, unshaven, semiliterate, dim-wit slob who could not locate a missing skyscraper and would be refused service at a hot dog stand. He is not Chandler's Marlowe, or mine, and I can't find him interesting, sympathetic or amusing, and I can't be sure who will." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film "is not a movie version of the Chandler mystery that anyone with a liking for Chandler could possibly enjoy ... If you are not prepared to shuffle along from scene to pointless, protracted scene with klutzy old Elliott, there will be little to occupy your time or offset your annoyance."

Roger Ebert, however, gave the film three out of four stars and praised Gould's 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". Gene Siskel also liked the film and gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars, calling it "a most satisfying motion picture" with Gould displaying "surprising finesse and reserve" in his performance, though he faulted the "convoluted and too quickly resolved plot".

When The Long Goodbye was rereleased, reviewer Vincent Canby wrote, "it's an original work, complex without being obscure, visually breathtaking without seeming to be inappropriately fancy".

Pauline Kael's lengthy review in The New Yorker called the film "a high-flying rap on Chandler and the movies", hailed Gould's performance as "his best yet" and praised Altman for achieving "a self-mocking fairy-tale poetry".

Despite Kael's effusive endorsement and its influence among younger critics, The Long Goodbye was relatively unpopular and earned poorly in the rest of the United States. The New York Times listed it in its Ten Best List for film for that year, while Zsigmond was awarded the National Society of Film Critics' prize for 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".

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "An ice-cold noir that retains Robert Altman's idiosyncratic sensibilities, The Long Goodbye ranks among the smartest and most satisfying Marlowe mysteries." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 87 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".