It wasn't avant-garde, but already outdated when it came out. Some people like the soundtrack, but I find the one song, in it's numerous variations very insipid. Hearing each version over and over again only point out how awful a song it is. It comes off as a cheap trick. So even on its own terms this movie is very weak and frustrating and as Chandler film it will make aficionados cringe.
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The Long Goodbye | Film | The Guardian
Share this Rating Title: The Long Goodbye 7. Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Learn more More Like This. The day-to-day lives of several suburban Los Angeles residents. Thieves Like Us Edit Cast Cast overview, first billed only: Philip Marlowe Nina van Pallandt Eileen Wade Sterling Hayden Roger Wade Mark Rydell A playful de-romanticizing of the detective genre Robert Altman orchestrates a jangly genre autopsy, mischievous and brutal. A reminder that meaning, if it is to be found at all, is not always revealed through a linear assessment of hints and clues, but simply stumbled upon.
The look, the unconventional cast and the unconventional story make this a unique film, one of Altman's best. Robert Altman's labyrinthine take on the Raymond Chandler classic is noir unburdened by a straight narrative - it's a triumph of atmosphere and attitude, a swiftly unfolding whodunit punctuated by subversive absurdities and shattering acts of violence. An intricate film noir satire that has all the elements that we expect from a Raymond Chandler story, only this time the protagonist of The Big Sleep is updated to the s with a shocker in the end and a delicious melancholy song that will stay in your head for a long time.
A very interesting film for film buffs. It's not fantastic, but it's a film for the sake of film. If you watch film noir, you should check it out. This movie takes the character of Phillip Marlowe, and puts him in the 70s culture. It is partly a parody, but it is also toying with what you expect for a film noir. Altman's Neo-Noir is a very enjoyable film. It takes Philip Marlowe and places him right in the hedonism of the s. Played excellently by Elliot Gould, our wise-cracking P. The people have changed, animals loathe him, and the simple favors he does for friends only serves to get him entangled in the affairs of nefarious people.
The story isn't very intriguing, but Altman's love of Noir really shines through. If anything, it is worth seeing an aged, grizzled Sterling Hayden and a young and frighteningly robust Arnold Schwarzenegger. More Top Movies Trailers. DC's Legends of Tomorrow: Black Panther Dominates Honorees. Trending on RT Avengers: The Long Goodbye Post Share on Facebook. Movie Info "It's OK with me Smart-aleck, cat-loving private eye Philip Marlowe Elliott Gould is certain that his friend Terry Lennox Jim Bouton isn't a wife-killer, even after the cops throw Marlowe in jail for not cooperating with their investigation into Lennox's subsequent disappearance.
Once he gets out of jail, Marlowe starts to conduct his own search when he discovers that mysterious blonde Eileen Wade Nina Van Pallandt , who hired him to find her alcoholic novelist husband Roger Sterling Hayden , lives on the same Malibu street as the absent Lennox and his deceased spouse. As numerous variations on the title song play in unexpected places, Marlowe encounters a shady doctor Henry Gibson , a bottle-wielding gangster director Mark Rydell , and a guard aping Barbara Stanwyck among other stars , before heading to Mexico to stumble onto the truth once and for all.
Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe. Nina Van Pallandt as Eileen. Dove lavora questo Marlowe? Che ha vicine di casa bellissime e sciroccate, perennemente in topless, sempre sveglie, passano il tempo tra yoga meditazione e confezionando candele, preparano brownies alle tre del mattino sicuramente speziati di hashish.
Marlowe invece di corteggiarle, gli fa la spesa di notte e non si fa rendere i soldi. Riflessi e doppie inquadrature. E compie un gesto tanto inaspettato quanto inevitabile, regalando al film un finale magnifico, decisamente superiore a quello del romanzo. Da sinistra a destra: View all 4 comments. Aug 06, Henry Avila rated it really liked it. Philip Marlowe, a cynical shamus, looks down at the parking lot of The Dancers Club, watching a drunk, be put into his car, a silver Rolls Royce, but the annoyed valet, has trouble, the left leg refuses to be moved inside, instead remains firmly on the ground.
Where the rest of the intoxicated man, will soon be also. The pretty red- headed woman, sitting next to him, or was, in the automobile, is very angry, with good reason. Turns out she is Sylvia Lennox, ex- wife of this inebriated war vetera Philip Marlowe, a cynical shamus, looks down at the parking lot of The Dancers Club, watching a drunk, be put into his car, a silver Rolls Royce, but the annoyed valet, has trouble, the left leg refuses to be moved inside, instead remains firmly on the ground.
Turns out she is Sylvia Lennox, ex- wife of this inebriated war veteran Second World War , Terry Lennox, and he has the scars on his face to prove it. Marlowe not known for being a nice guy, comes down the steps and helps the defenseless Terry up. While the multimillionaire's notorious daughter, says she's late for an engagement, and go get a cab to the lush, Mr. Taking the vehicle it's hers , speeding away like a race driver, towards the finish line.
What to do with this pathetic creature, take him home and sober him up thinks Marlowe, can't leave the poor man, in the gutter, things were different in the last year of the 's, besides Thanksgiving, had just been celebrated Soon these unlikely two become friends , Mr. Marlowe keeps Terry from the drunk tank, the next time he sees him, trying to be vertical, on the streets of Los Angeles, hustles him away, when a cop notices.. But would you believe it? This alcoholic friend, living mostly in some dark hole, outside, wherever he could find or reach one, remarries the wealthy daughter of Mr.
Harlan Potter, and is on their second honeymoon in Las Vegas! From the top to the bottom and back, again, sending a hundred dollar check, to the astonished Marlowe, for all his complications, a few days before Christmas, too. They later become drinking partners, at a dingy bar, but happiness does not last, Mr. Lennox is just a front, to keep the promiscuous Sylvia, looking respectable, Daddy is a cold, conservative, honorable man, no bad publicity, he likes it as much as a stock market crash, but a murder is committed, there will be more, and Terry is suspected, the hero flees to Mexico, with the assistance of Philip, who asks not the right questions, a pal is a pal.
The tough police aren't, slapping the private detective around, beating him, like a punching bag, with eyes, not the first time, either from criminals or the law, it does still hurt, but keeps his trap shut Jailed, looking out into space, only blankness , waiting and wondering, how can he get out of this foolish mess, maybe be incarcerated in San Quentin, the big house, for years, but has his pride, intact Days later he is sprung, becomes involved with Mr. Wade, in the exclusive, then , San Fernando Valley, Eileen Wade is breathtakingly beautiful, Roger Wade is another drunk, but a best- selling writer, who needs to stop drinking, in order to finish his next book, swords and romance, not a favorite of critics , but they are poor and he is rich Philip Marlowe, through no fault of his own, brings death , and sinister, lurking gangsters Raymond Chandler, the king of mystery authors, has another great novel, that lifts it above the genre, into serious, distinguished, literature.
View all 12 comments. Aug 06, Dan Schwent rated it really liked it Shelves: A down and out friend of Marlowe's flees to Mexico with Marlowe's help, his wife dead under suspicious circumstances. Marlowe's friend soon turns up dead, an apparent suicide. But what does his death, if anything, have to do with a drunk writer Marlowe finds himself watching? I'm not really sure how I feel about the Long Goodbye. It's Chandler so the writing is great, with Chandler's trademark similes and hard-boiled atmosphere.
On the other hand, it's written a little differently than his other A down and out friend of Marlowe's flees to Mexico with Marlowe's help, his wife dead under suspicious circumstances. On the other hand, it's written a little differently than his other Philip Marlowe books. It's more philosophical and less crime-oriented.
The two victims in the story seem to be stand-ins for Chandler himself. It's still crime oriented, though. It took me forever to figure out how the two seemingly unrelated cases were linked. I got there just before Marlowe did but it was a close shave. What else is there to say without giving anything away?
Chandler once again delivers the goods, just not in the same package as usual. Still, it was a very enjoyable read. View all 10 comments. Jan 09, Hadrian rated it it was amazing Shelves: Dammit, Raymond Chandler has style. His use of metaphor is so good that he is still an original, even after lesser noirists have copied or stolen from him outright for the past sixty years. Yet for a hardboiled novel with the slickest of metaphors, Chandler is still a very sensitive writer. For a genre so easily stereotyped as gruff plastic machismo, this is an oddly meditative and melancholy book.
You root for Marlowe, of course, but you admire his cases and his dedication, and h Dammit, Raymond Chandler has style. You root for Marlowe, of course, but you admire his cases and his dedication, and his sad depictions of s Los Angeles. Chandler maybe even put part of himself into this story, with the parts with the writer down on his luck, or the scarred sympathetic veteran.
The twist ending, by the way, is fantastic. This, I hear, is one of his best. He may be 'only' a genre writer, but to hell with that. It is my firm opinion he's one of the best prose stylists the US has produced in the 20th century. View all 8 comments. Jun 29, Michael rated it really liked it Shelves: This one is different in being more meditative and in having more of a focus on alienation among the wealthy residents of gated compounds.
Compared to the earlier tales, Chandler is more judicious here in the playful, sardonic banter Marlowe uses for dismaying and undermining his adversaries, part of his signature cool bravado in the face of danger. The story begins with Marlowe helping his sensitive alcoholic friend Lennox escape to Mexico, with no questions asked. Soon he learns his faithless, wealthy wife has been brutally murdered, with Lennox the prime suspect. Marlowe stays mum during brutal police questioning and is held in jail for a few days. The case comes up again when he begins to find links with another PI job.
A murder takes place that he might have prevented, putting Marlowe into high gear to solve the linked cases and foil the pervasive efforts of powerful forces to suppress the truth. Despite the troubles with alcohol that beset his two main characters and Chandler himself, he has a wonderful way of capturing the allure Marlowe finds in drinking with Lennox: When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation.
I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. I make lots of dough. I got to make lots of dough to juice the guys I got to juice in order to make lots of dough to juice the guys I got to juice. A rich businessmen has his formula for success nicely boiled down: So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Let the lawyers work it out. They write the laws for other lawyers to dissect in front of other lawyers to dissect in front of other lawyers called judges so that other judges can say the first judges were wrong and the Supreme Court can say the second lot were wrong.
About all it does is make business for lawyers. We got them in our hair all the time these days. They write reports fifteen pages long on why some punk of a juvenile held up a liquor store or raped a schoolgirl or peddled her to the senior class. Ten years from now guys like Hernandez and me will be doing Rohrschach tests and word associations instead of chin-ups and target practice. So you get the picture that there is a bit of preaching in this story.
I choose to believe the following words of Marlowe are close to his own, and I appreciate the tongue-in-cheek aspects behind them: In one way cops are all the same. They blame the wrong things. Cops are like a doctor that gives you aspirin for a brain tumor, except that the cop would rather cure it with a blackjack. Organized crime is just the dirty side of the sharp dollar. But here the heroic aspects are infused with the tragic element of impotence in the face of rank consumerism and selfishness in society in the early 50s.
View all 25 comments. Feb 10, Anthony Vacca rated it it was amazing Shelves: The Big Sleep , Farwell, My Lovely , and The Little Sister are all seminal works of the hard-boiled genre, too be sure; and on any other day of the week each is its own fuel-injected suicide machine; but in a bare-knuckled brawl, these books are packing wet noodles for arms when they walk into the Thunderdome and go up against the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla that is The Long Goodbye. Luckily, these two novels are very separate beasts; while both feature plot-threads involving alcoholic, asshole authors, they go their own separate, heart-stomping ways.
In the earlier novels, all the events transpire usually under 48 hours, with Marlowe getting assigned a case in the first few pages, and then finding the first in a long trail of dead bodies by page The Long Goodbye begins with a jarring but lovely change of pacing and tone, with Marlowe forging a chance-friendship with a charming loser of a war veteran. For a certain breed of mystery reader, this will probably sound like a terrible prospect, but then again, I am a different kind of mystery reader.
I believe the genre can be a powerful medium for morality tales that can tackle all sorts of issues that I find important i. I consider mystery novels—when they are truly well-written and truly about something—as important as any other well-cherished work of literature. This book tired me emotionally, and I mean that in the best possible way. View all 16 comments. Jul 10, Evgeny rated it liked it Shelves: Philip Marlowe saves a drunken guy from being dumped in a ditch. He does it again another time. He does is yet again another time. Finally he gets into trouble for doing this: This book gives a very realistic gritty picture of US life in early fifties.
It provides social commentary on the subject. It is considered by many critics to be the best Raymond Chandler novel, a classic of literature in general. It also happened to be unnecessar Philip Marlowe saves a drunken guy from being dumped in a ditch. It also happened to be unnecessary long and boring. As a mystery book it is really third-rate, so let us just call it classic drama with some mystery elements, just to be fair.
Philip Marlowe does not feel the same to the extent that I would like to ask the late author, "Who the heck is the guy impersonating him and what happened to the real one? Gone are Marlowe's wisecracks. The plot of the previous 5 novels moved with a very fast rate where the whole story took place within a couple of days. This time we have sentences like, "Several weeks passed" on practically every page. Continuing the theme of the guy impersonating Marlowe in the book, he really acts out of character here. Where is the guy who went head-to-head with an armed ruthless killer trying to protect a person who he never saw before The Big Sleep?
He spends his time doing boring routine and being bullied. He is bullied by everybody and their brother: Sorry, I got carried away in the last four cases, but it could happen with the rate things were going. The only reason for all the bulling? Marlowe got stubborn for no good cause whatsoever. The rating of this book is 3 stars with one more half of a star added for its classic status.
Raymond Chandler mentioned in his essay that during his writing if he felt the plot became slow he would make a man with a gun come through the door. I was waiting for the guy through the whole book; he never came. Macdonald l-a privit surprins. Dec 05, Aubrey rated it it was amazing Shelves: They pass through your life, your mind, your heart, bundled in their own worlds with their wants and needs and feelings.
And they'll tangle you up and drag you with and leave you with a lump in your throat and a weight in your gut. That's the best case scenario. Worst case scenario you end up broken, in jail, dead. Philip avoids the latter case with an insight into the human condition so instinctive and accurate it is frankly terrifying. Doesn't help him at all with the former though. Besides all that, he is a singular character with singular motives.
He would have been an excellent knight in the medieval ages, but I have a feeling that he wouldn't have been drawn to such an auspicious living. His inherent moral code is tempered by a fixation on the seedier side of living. He craves the city, a filthy machine that rests on a vicious underbelly and is topped with a slathering of sickening gilt. He lives to solve the problem without regard to both those he affects and those who affect him; he must have an indifference to life made of steel, if not a mental complex the size of the city he resides in.
I'd have to read more into him to find out. Which I think I shall. All discussion of the main character aside, the crime was tantalizing, the plot moved at a compulsively readable place, and you have to love witty banter, even if much of it was bluffing and bullshit. That's why we have Marlowe though, to carve through all the things people say and find what they actually mean. You know, I think he also would've made a cool English professor. I'm not sure how well street smarts would have translated to character and plot analysis, but humans really haven't changed that much in the past millennium or so.
Different words, but our motives and thought patterns still follow stupidly predictable ways for those who can see it. Raymond Chandler can definitely see it, and shows it to the rest of us in a way that leaves us craving more. There's no greater escape from the bullshit of your own life than through a novel that cuts through its own, and it is inherently addicting.
May 08, Darwin8u rated it it was amazing Shelves: Certain writers are deemed to be brilliant and yet their stars fade quickly. Their notable books are soon forgotten, misplaced, unread and eventually pulped. Other writers seem to have the opposite trajectory.
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They are viewed as pulp or genre writers, but over time they seem to transcend the genre and even seem to dance on the graves of labels. Raymond Chandler is one of those later writers. These are the men who built the hard-boiled noir house that everyone else lives in. He is a god and a poet. His dialogue seems to have just fallen directly from the swollen lips of a trash-talking demiurge.
His novels are both the burn and the bush. His prose is both the wilderness and the mountain. He can kill-off the Alpha and seduce the Omega before you recognize your own face in the cracked mirror. I can't think of a modern writer of detective or crime fiction that shouldn't be paying Chander's heirs some form of rent. I can't imagine a writer who wants to include a gun and a woman and a detective in a novel NOT consulting Chandler's novels for hints of inspiration. Obviously, I adore the genre and the writer, but even if I work hard to remove my own biases it is difficult to walk away from 'The Long Goodbye' without recognizing what a gift was thrown at our underserving, flat feet.
Aug 13, [P] rated it it was amazing Shelves: Tom was a quiet, reserved kind of guy. Which at the time was unusual within my circle of friends. Most everyone I knew back when I first returned to Sheffield was a lush, a druggie or just plain crazy. I made friends in pubs and clubs. Perhaps the company I kept gave me a false sense of my emotional and physical well-being. When J is getting the sack because he has been Tom was a quiet, reserved kind of guy. And everything pointed to Tom outlasting every one of us.
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Only a fool would have thought otherwise. Yeah, Tom made fools of us all. He made comments about his appearance, and you credited him with a dry, deprecating sense of humour. What a sensible guy. If only we could be like him. Yet sometimes I would wonder. And in my wisdom would take Tom for a drink. It is all I knew how to do. I hoped that would help somehow, that he would see it for what it was: That is just the way it was. And all the while he carried on slipping.
A little at a time; almost imperceptibly. Until one day he was gone. The guy we thought would go places, did. I think about those times a lot. About Tom in particular. Mop-haired Tom, so unassuming. If his name ever now comes up people like to say his situation was hopeless. That is their comfort blanket. I guess it makes them feel better to think that way. All I know is that whatever he was up against, whatever he was grappling with, he lost. That no longer surprises me. Of course, I wish I could have done more. I wish I had.
It hurts to know I failed him. Maybe there is nothing I could have done. Some people are not made to endure.
The Long Goodbye
But futile effort is like a shot of whisky, it can calm the nerves. Raymond Chandler once wrote that to say goodbye is to die a little.
Well, I never even got to say goodbye. It was a surprise to me that reading The Long Goodbye brought all this back up. It is not something I had expected. I guess guilt is like a blood stain, it takes a long time to fade. The truth is that many of the characters — including Eileen Wade, strangely enough — got to me on their own terms, just like they got to Philip Marlowe. And the credit for that goes to the author. It will not happen to me.
Marlowe first encounters the man hanging out of a Rolls, blind-drunk. Also in the car is his beautiful ex-wife. The ex-wife is hard-nosed, unsympathetic, dispensable; Marlowe is, against his better judgement, and for no personal gain, drawn to Lennox and wants to help him; and Terry is vulnerable, in need of help, and likely to bring in his wake a whole lot of trouble. Lennox is, both emotionally and physically, damaged goods.
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His wise-cracks, which readers seem to so cherish, struck me as angrier, or more bitter than usual, rather than admirable bravado or swagger. They drift towards each other out of a pretty basic human desire for contact or friendship. The men do not share interests, they do not really talk to each other all that much, but they could be said to need each other. Indeed, The Long Goodbye is a terribly sad book, bleak even; its overriding message is that, as a result of two wars, the world is quickly going down the toilet, that humanity is starting to collapse under the weight of its own faeces.
The wars, Chandler suggests, have taken our innocence, and left us worn-out, seedy, cynical and self-obsessed. Apparently, he did not set out to write a Marlowe novel, but eventually lost his nerve.