THE LONG GOODBYE

Phillip Marlowe, the protagonist of Raymond Chandler’s popular series of detective novels is very much a man of his time. The established image of Marlowe is that of a quick-witted, hard-drinking, chain smoking tough young man – perhaps with a chiselled jaw line and sharp features. He’s nobody’s fool and is always a couple of steps ahead of his rivals. Most importantly he abides by a strict moral code which does not permit violence unless absolutely necessary and ensures that the guilty are brought to justice. The values of the ‘50s are personified within this man. Altman, helming the adaption of Chandler’s penultimate Marlowe novel, The Long Goodbye, asks us instead to imagine Marlowe as a Rip Van Winkle figure. Having fallen asleep in the ‘50s, Marlowe entered a period of ‘big sleep’, eventually awaking in the ‘70s. This film asks the question: is there a role for people like Phillip Marlowe in this new society?

Upon waking from his 20-year slumber, Marlowe (Elliot Gould) struggles to please his cat by finding its favourite brand of food, greets the free-spirited girls next door, and grants – without question - his buddy Terry Lennox’s (Jim Bouton) request to give him a lift to the Mexico-California border. Still wiping the sleep from his eyes the next morning, he is accosted by policemen who claim that Lennox brutally murdered his wife and was seen fleeing to the border with Marlowe. Soon, however, news of Lennox’s suicide reaches the police and they are forced to close the case and release Marlowe without charge. In a state of shock and disbelief Marlowe sets out to seek the truth behind the accusations. He soon learns, however, that he is somewhat out of his element.

There’s a masterful extended sequence at the beginning of the film – perhaps the film’s most famous scene, where Marlowe attempts to feed his cat. This scene subtly portrays Marlowe’s character flaws, which will be exploited to a greater extent later in the film. He attempts to fool his cat by giving it a different brand of cat food from that which it expects. Of course he fails (at which point the cat turns up its nose, lets out a meow and casually knocks the cat food onto the floor). Marlowe’s blind loyalty is also evident as he heads to the store in the middle of the night to pick out his cat’s favourite brand. This sparks a hilarious conversation with a store clerk – “What do I need a cat for, I've got a girl”. Of course, Marlowe’s loyalty goes unrewarded as his cat betrays him by leaving and never returning – an event which occurs in tandem with Lennox’s journey south to the border.

Rather than simply satiating the Chandler purists, The Long Goodbye appears to be the product of Altman having fun, gleefully letting loose and seeing just how many genre conventions he can toy with. His Phillip Marlowe is a man hopelessly out of sorts with the world around him. Upon being released from police custody, Marlowe is hired by the beautiful Eileen Wade (Nina Van Pallandt) to track down her alcoholic husband Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden - who apes Hemingway magnificently). Marlowe, despite figuring that this disappearance is related somehow to Lennox’s apparent suicide fails to see the bigger picture. Chandler’s Marlowe would have seen through Mrs Wade – just the way Marlowe saw through Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep - but this femme fatale stays one step ahead of our protagonist at all times. Further signs that he is out of place are dotted throughout the film: his relationship to the troupe of hippy girls outside his apartment, his social awkwardness and his constant smoking in contrast to the remaining cast’s complete abstinence.

So yes, Altman paints Marlowe as an impotent, easy to fool man out of time. But he doesn’t simply exercise subtle hints regarding the nature of this change – sometimes he paints in much broader strokes. That the world has changed is made startlingly clear in one scene where Marlowe is captured by the gangster Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell), who claims Marlowe is in possession of a $5,000 bill stolen from him by Lennox. In an act of brutality Marty takes a coke bottle and smashes it across the face of his girlfriend, just to make the point “Her, I love. You, I don't even like.” At moments like this it’s not just Marlowe who is reminded that the world has changed and will never be the same again.

Elliot Gould is perfectly cast as Rip Van Marlowe. He is a strange amalgamation of unadulterated ‘50s cool combined with a kind of desperate strangeness. He does a good job of not playing Marlowe as bumbling or entirely inept – it’s clear that there was a time and a place for this kind of man; unfortunately it’s made equally clear that this time is no more. Gould does a good job of showing the evolution of this new Marlowe. At first he appears to be merely a passenger in this story, forced this way and that by other people’s plotting and planning. However, before the movies end he regains control on the reigns of his life and is able to accept that a new form of justice is needed for a new age.

Altman’s control of the story and Marlowe’s evolution (or, re-evolution, perhaps) reaches levels of genius. There are only two songs in the film – the mood setting The Long Goodbye composed by John Williams and Johnny Mercer, which plays on different formats and in different arrangements throughout the film. Having poked fun at Hollywood conventions for 112 minutes, Altman’s second song plays over the final shot (which clearly references The Third Man) and the final credits: the bitterly ironic ‘Hooray for Hollywood’. Little acts of daring such as these characterise Altman’s entire filmography. Unlike The Long Goodbye’s Phillip Marlowe, Altman is very much aware of the time he lives in and as a result created a film that is not only satirical and full of references to Hollywood’s past, but also a whole bunch of fun.