Wick's Review

Summary - OK 2.5

More an oddball curiosity than a successful movie, The Long Goodbye dropped a Forties private-eye story into the Seventies. Robert Altman used that juxtaposition to show how times had changed in the twenty years since the Raymond Chandler novel on which the movie is based came out. That it does, albeit the subsequent forty years reveal the whole thing as a bit of a mess, not unlike the Me Decade itself.

Thus the movie is more Altman than Chandler, starting with the satiric director casting his MASH star Elliott Gould as legendary detective Philip Marlowe. This Marlowe comes across as more Groucho than Bogie, more a big nebbish than a cool customer. Indeed the whole thing has a Jewish satire feel to it, what with a stereotypical Jew playing a goy who goes up against a bad Jew in Mark Rydell’s psychotic mobster.

Unfortunately the movie plays today as largely flat, not effervescent like high quality satire should. It comes across as stupidly hard-bitten, and misogynistic to boot. IOW, for all its ironic affectations, it is a typical Hollywood confection.

That said, it finally gets gripping when an alcoholic and his wife argue about their marriage. Unfortunately The Long Goodbye has long outworn its welcome by then.

Acting - Good 3.0

Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe becomes tiresome, his wisecracks barely funny, his constant lighting of cigarettes a tedious affectation. Like all comedy, satire is hard, and Gould’s Marlowe barely pulls it off.

• Nina van Pallandt could have been typecast as a beautiful blonde who lives on the beach, as indeed she played again seven years later in American Gigolo.
• Sterling Hayden rambles through as an alcoholic writer.
• Mark Rydell chews the scenery as a psychotic mobster who flaunts his Jewish identity. Odd.
• Henry Gibson used his quixotic weirdness as a money grubbing psychiatrist.
• David Arkin – a favorite of Robert Altman’s – is apparently no relation to Alan Arkin.
• Jim Bouton was an ex-big leaguer more famous for writing Ball Four than pitching, let alone acting.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger made his second movie appearance as an uncredited extra. Look for him an hour and a half in. He’s eye popping.

Film - OK 2.5

Robert Altman’s retro juxtaposition with Me Decade L.A. doesn’t work, though perhaps it played better when his fans were sucking in the Seventies.

Edge - Sordid 2.9

The Long Goodbye is sickly misogynistic, though that must have felt subversive to Altman and crew in 1973. No this doesn’t refer to the topless girls next door, but to the savage treatment of the mobster’s moll.

Reality - Glib 1.5

Altman was the king of acid-inspired satire, for instance by having his hero surreally ignore the girls next door, who spend all their time tripping while topless. Or having him fill cans with cat food and then not return to that reality.

Surrealism aside, the movie seems more Forties than Seventies by picturing Malibu Colony when dogs played on Highway 1.

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