The Long Goodbye

I am familiar with the Raymond Chandler type of detective even though I have not read this particular book. I was curious to see how Elliott Gould would fit in to the preconceptions I had of Phillip Marlowe.

I wasn't impressed with his style. He didn't seem hard enough. The constant chain-smoking seemed contrived. He seemed lackadaisical.

Then I looked at the director - Robert Altman, the Hollywood-hating director that went against type. Everything made sense. The constant Hollywood references in the movie, and the private eye that hung around with bare-breasted hippies still stuck in the Summer of Love.

Done in between Mash and Nashville, it is particularly Altman. It is a caricature of Marlowe, and, in that sense, Gould fits perfectly. I am not happy with the film, but I understand.

The cinematography was great and the sound tract was superb. Sterling Hayden (Dr. Strangelove) was great as the Hemingwayesque writer, and Nina Van Pallandt (Clifford Irving's mistress for you literary types) was also very good as his wife.

Good Altman, but not a good Marlowe. See Bogey in The Big Sleep for the best example of how that should be done.