ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises
BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See
mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.
epat Thought I'd seen Long Goodbye before, but, watching it, I soon realized I hadn't - probably because I never liked Elliot Gould & could never picture him as Philip Marlowe. Not that he was any more incongruous than any other part of that film. Tho they still had him inexplicably driving a '40s convertible - yet never with the top down for some reason - the film was reset in the swinging '70s when it was made & only a few plot elements vaguely connected the film to the original Raymond Chandler novel at all. In one ludicrous scene, the villain - to impress Marlowe with how vicious he is - smashes his own girlfriend in the face with a coke bottle. The bottle shatters, badly cutting her face. A coke bottle? Shatters on a human face? Yeah, right. But that's just the kind of film this was.
PimpinAinttEasy Dear Robert Altman, I have not read The Long Goodbye. But I have read a couple of other novels with the Philip Marlowe character. Elliot Gould's portrayal of Marlowe was not what I expected. But it is OK, it was an interesting interpretation of the character. I enjoyed your film. It really isn't a crime film. If I were to make a crime film, I would never make it the way you made The Long Goodbye. Your film is laid-back (the constant sound of waves) and also quite shocking. It has one of the most violent scenes ever captured on film. It is a film of place. You obviously did not care about the plot or the actual crime. Like Thieves Like Us, you seem to be concerned with invoking nostalgia for a certain era and a way of life or a place. The film is full of eccentric characters like the writer played by Sterling Hayden and the nude yoga enthusiasts. The Coens might have been inspired by this film when they made The Big Lebowski. Fans of that film might want to check out The Long Goodbye. After all, both films feature a laid back protagonist who hilariously breezes through tricky situations. Though I guess Marlowe might be a lot more motivated than Lebowski. Best Regards, Pimpin.(7/10)
georgewilliamnoble Hello to a missing movie of my youth, i well the film coming out and my interest in it, but after a 43 year wait thanks to DVD i have ticked off Altman's "The Long Goodbye". As a piece of drama, as a piece of detective fiction, as a piece of the private eye genre and Chandler, it is as i suspected a complete failure. The setting is all wrong, the then modern day LA. The running gag of the topless hippie teenage neighbours, that Marlowe has so little interest in, perhaps because he has been sacked by his demanding cat, is abstract in the extreme, but it is one of a number of off beat jokes that work, at least from the vista of viewing the movie from the distance of 4 and a half decades. Simply as "film Noir" or a detective genre film, let alone as entertainment, little works. Gould is miscast, the plot fragmentary, not always Altman's fault i it, but as a piece of eccentric 70's cinema, perhaps as modern art, the film is not without several interesting points. Time has made the 1973 setting all but inspired due to the fashions, clothes, make up, attitudes, the big cars or the over written syn ism,so typical of the late Vietnam era. For me the 1967-1974, pr block buster "Jaws"/"Star Wars" era was golden age of mature grown up American cinema, of which Altman's "The Long Goodbye" is a welcome addition, perhaps on a second viewing i will enjoy it more, so for now a interesting plus movie that i give a 7/10 score.
tomsview When I first saw this film back in the 70's, I thought it was just too quirky like many movies made at the time. However, 40 years later, I can appreciate it more and I'm glad I gave it another look.Private eye Philip Marlow lives in Los Angeles with his cat. When a friend asks to be driven to Mexico, it leads into a story of suicide, murder, a scheming woman, a setup, a frame-up, a dodgy doctor and a psychotic gangster.To be honest, the plot is a bit ordinary as was the story in the original novel, but just as it was on the printed page, the power of the movie was in the telling.Years ago, I read Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels and if the plots weren't overly convoluted, they were implausible. The success was in the character Chandler created and the way he described his world. Altman got it; the film is different to the novel, but it's all about Marlowe and the way he reacts to what is happening around him.Altman didn't set his film in the late 40's as depicted in the novel, otherwise it would have been more like "Farewell My Lovely" with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe made a couple of years later.Altman places Marlowe in 1970's Los Angeles. Bogart and Mitchum gave us classic Marlowe, but Elliott Gould gives us something different. He's a man who sticks to a personal set of principles despite seeming out of place. Elliott Gould plays him as pretty chilled-out, and the film captures a sense of disillusionment with just about everything – it was the 70's after all.Arnold Schwarzenegger has a non-speaking part as a heavy, and an aging Sterling Hayden plays an author with issues. Perfect casting really as the imposing Hayden was apparently drunk or stoned most of the time on this film.The movie has a different ending to the novel and it's not a totally satisfying one; the final scene even pays a little homage to the final scene in "The Third Man". One thing the film does is highlight the unique vision of Robert Altman who gave a new twist to an almost dead genre.
