Quick Movie Review: The Long Goodbye

7/10

In 1973 Robert Altman, of all people, made this version of the classic Raymond Chandler story with Elliot Gould as the classic anti-hero, Philip Marlowe.

It's fantastic casting as Gould's Marlowe is suitably scruffy, likable and crucially out of his time (the film is set in 1973, rather than the 1953 of the book). His starngely antiquated moral centre gets him into all kinds of trouble as he banters his way through a fairly standard thriller plot as double crossings and violated confidences pile up and ruin his day.

This particular case begins when Terry Lennox, an old pal of Marlowe's, turns up on his doorstep and asks for a lift to Tijuana, Mexico since he has had a (physical) fight with his wife and wants to get out of town. As you may appreciate it is not that simple - old Terry failed to mention that his wife is considerably worse off than he implies, and he has managed to hack off a bunch of police and gangsters in the process.

Marlowe is also retained by the strangely loving wife of a drunken author who asks the PI to find her husband, who has vanished into rehab.

What with all this intrigue going on it's not hard to anticipate poor old Philip is going to have a hard few days and boy, he really does. Altman's typically not the most rushed of filmmakers, and there are no instances of Bond-like hyper editing here, the framing is odd, sometimes wilfully so, with the main action taking place behind extras, drowned out by traffic or in one corner of the screen. This serves to heighten our sense of being "in" the California of the movie, sharing in the squlour and the false glamour with Marlowe as he gets sucked deeper into the machinations of those around him.

I don't normally mention the score because the best ones don't jump out at you since that's not their job. In this case I will though, since the score (aside fromt eh intro and credits tune "Hooray For Hollywood") is a hundred minor variations on a song written specially for the movie by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. It appears everywhere, from thew muzak in Marlowe's lift to the funeral march in Tijuana. Oh, and it's first bar or two are the doorbell for the writers house. It's a very clever move, and at no point does the movie make the mistake of drawing attention to it through dialogue ("hey haven't I heard that tune before?") but instead relies on a little suspension of disbelief on the audience's part.

Gould's Marlowe may well be very different to Bogart's, but what of that? It's just another take on the character and one I think is successful on many levels. The sheer obviousness of the films twists as well as its odd pace and timing may put others off but I came away with significant enjoyment heightened considerably by what must be one of the shock endings in this genre of movies.

A