The Long Goodbye (1973, USA)

I’m a pretty big Robert Altman fan, but this was the first time I’d seen The Long Goodbye, one of the weirdest of his early films. Altman and Leigh Brackett take Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe out of the 1940s and plop him down in the middle of 1970s Los Angeles. In this, Marlowe could have become an obvious throwback – driving a vintage car, wearing a suit and tie, striking matches off any available surface – but in many ways, he fits right in. He doesn’t seem to mind the pseudo-lesbian topless convention having an eternal party in the apartment down the way (even going so far as to spot them for some brownie mix), but what’s more obvious is that his selective amorality seems to suit the scene almost perfectly. Sure, Marlowe makes a lot of noise about proving the innocence of a friend accused of murder, but mostly he lopes about with no clear direction or drive, becoming embroiled in another, only later related, case simply because there’s a pretty blonde at the center of it, and maybe no one else called that day. Even though the end of the film asks more questions than it answers, the whole thing just feels right, kind of like a shaggy dog story about a man who’s just . . . well, despite appearances (and aren’t they everything in L.A.?), maybe he IS the man for this time and place. Maybe L.A. has always been poison.

Stroke of genius, casting Elliott Gould as Marlowe – who could possibly seem more out of place in a free love L.A. than a crotchety Jew from Brooklyn? If it was Altman’s intention to make the inhabitants of greater Los Angeles look like assholes, well – he couldn’t have picked a better partner for the job. For all the mentions of his “nice face”, it’s obvious to everyone, even the super-weirdoes like Sterling Haydon’s alcoholic writer and Mark Rydell’s psycho mob boss, that Gould/Marlowe looks like he just doesn’t fit in around here. Stay out of Malibu, indeed.