A Long Look Back

The Long Goodbye is a movie I perhaps shouldn't have carved out time to watch. The 1973 film is directed by Robert Altman (whose work I've never especially liked), and it's based on a Raymond Chandler novel (though "film noir" is not a genre I'm generally enthusiastic about). Still, the movie had managed to pop up several times over the past year in various contexts -- enough to convince me that this was a foundational movie I'd probably do well to have seen. And while indeed, I did not love it, there were enough elements I responded to that I was glad after all that I'd made the time.

Chandler's famed detective Philip Marlowe becomes embroiled in a mystery when he gives a friend a ride to Mexico, and the wife of that friend is found dead the next day. Marlowe is held for questioning... but ultimately released when the friend turns up dead in Mexico. From there, the plot only thickens, as a seemingly unrelated case of a missing husband may have unexpected connections, and a gangster puts Marlowe on the hook for money his late friend owed.

One major point of interest for me in watching the film was learning, as the credits rolled, who wrote the screenplay. Leigh Brackett is known for the scripts of several classic movies, though geeks like me will know that one of her last projects before her death was an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back. If you can't help but notice how sharp the characters are in Empire, how sparkling the dialogue is compared to literally every other Star Wars movie to date? The conventional wisdom is you're seeing the work of Leigh Brackett shining through.

It's fascinating to see how a she, writing in 1973, negotiates all the cliches of the traditionally male-driven film noir format. The Long Goodbye hardly codes as "feminist," though I daresay I detect a greater interest in this movie's characters as characters rather than archetypes, as film noir usually reads to me. And certainly, the dialogue here is notably snappy; people have a way of saying things that feels perfectly heightened without being unnaturally "over-written."

Outside of these touches that I like to think are Brackett, I can't say I'm otherwise thrilled by the script. The story simultaneously feels stale and rather convoluted -- though that presumably all comes from Raymond Chandler's original book (which was already 20 years old at the time this movie was made; it has only aged more since). It also unfolds at the glacial pace typical of 1970s movies. The Long Goodbye is less than two hours and yet still manages to feel about 20 minutes too long. This has a lot to do with just how much time is spent setting up the world; we're almost 14 minutes in before it feels like the story really starts to heat up (and most of that opening 14 minutes involves the main character dealing with his cat).

Still, I was drawn into even the slower parts of the movie to some extent, thanks to the actor playing the main character. I've seen Elliott Gould in all kinds of roles over the years... though he has felt to me like an actor who was somehow always "old." Now, of course, I'm aging myself and that's surely affecting my perceptions. Yet still, I'd never seen a movie with a younger Elliott Gould like this. And he gives a good performance too. This version of Philip Marlowe talks to himself all the time, making quips only for "himself" and the audience, and Gould somehow manages to make all that feel plausible. (And that first 14 minutes that's mostly Gould and a cat? Well, it may have nothing to do with the plot, yet it still somehow is oddly compelling. And however it may have been found in the editing room, this cat gives an extraordinary performance.)

Gould is only the most notable (to me) of several interesting performances in the film. There's Henry Gibson, fresh off Laugh-In and playing massively against type. Nina van Pallandt gives good "femme fatale." And, uncredited, blink and you'll miss both David Carradine and, in a non-speaking role, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Another noteworthy "performance" in the film comes from the composer, a name you'll surely recognize: John Williams. This comes rather early in Williams' career, and the score sounds nothing like what you'd think of as a John Williams score. He's still very much "Johnny Williams," hired here to do what many movies of the era did: have one song, remixed a half-dozen ways to sprinkle throughout the film. It's an interesting bit of film archaeology.

Overall, I didn't love The Long Goodbye. Indeed, these days, I tend not to even bother blogging about things that I have a generally mixed-to-negative opinion about. (As for why? Well, you could argue there's no point in me reaching out to swat down a 50-year-old movie that's on no one's radar.) And yet, there was just enough here that I don't want to fully swat this movie down. I give The Long Goodbye a C-. If you're a fan of noir, or Leigh Brackett (whether you knew her by name or not), or hell -- cat actors -- there might be something here worthy of your time.