Despite being based on Raymond Chandler’s last book, The Long Goodbye is not a film noir or hard-boiled detective movie. It’s a Robert Altman film, which means it’s anything but straightforward.
Altman was known for his satirical approach, and The Long Goodbye is no exception.
Instead of relying on voice-over narration, Altman’s version of Philip Marlowe (played by Elliott Gould) frequently mutters to himself and offers commentary on the situations he and others find themselves in. Marlowe is more concerned with finding his missing cat (Morris the Cat) than with solving the case or dealing with the topless yoga vixens next door, or even the $5,000 banknote he’s received from the missing man. He’s a private eye who drifts through his cases.
Set in 1970s Los Angeles, The Long Goodbye is a far cry from the film noir-ish LA of the 1940s. However, this Marlowe is a man out of time, always wearing a suit and tie (even on the beach) and driving a 1940s Cadillac, all the while chain-smoking.
The movie departs from Chandler’s long and complex novel, and the changes suit an Altman film. And I have mixed feelings about that.
Chandler got his start writing for the pulp magazines. I’m a big aficionado of the pulps and a fan of noirs and hard-boiled detective films. I also think Altman was one of the most creative filmmakers of his time. That’s where my internal conflict comes in.
I’m okay with Altman’s film right up until the ending. It’s completely out of character for both the book’s and the film’s Marlowe.
Altman collaborated with Leigh Brackett on the screenplay for The Long Goodbye. Best known for her science-fiction stories in the pulp magazines, which earned her the nickname “Queen of the Space Opera,” Brackett was also a skilled detective-fiction writer. Her first novel outside the pulps, No Good From a Corpse (1944), was a hard-boiled mystery in the style of Chandler.
That novel caught the attention of director Howard Hawks, who brought Brackett on board to help finish the script for The Big Sleep with co-writers William Faulkner and Jules Furthman.
(Brackett was also a screenwriter for several Hawks’ films, including westerns Rio Bravo and El Dorado, and the African adventure film Hatari! She also penned the first draft of Star Wars: Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back, which I wrote about on another blog in 2015.)
Getting back to The Long Goodbye, Marlowe’s decision to shoot his longtime friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) is particularly jarring. Typically, hard-boiled detectives operate within their own moral code, and although they may skirt the edges of the law, they would never resort to murder, let alone shoot an unarmed person and walk away satisfied.
But I guess that’s the difference between hard-boiled fiction and a Robert Altman film.