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cin-e-rama: triptych format (three cameras, three projectors) employing a high, wide, deeply curved, three-panel screen, yielding a panorama that extended nearly to the limits of peripheral vision; introduced in 1952.
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Smart Guy In The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman's 1973 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, Elliott Gould stars as private detective Philip Marlowe. When Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton), Marlowe's best friend, visits the detective's slovenly L.A. loft at 3 a.m. and asks for a ride to Mexico, Marlowe doesn't ask any questions--he's that kind of friend. But soon after he drops off Lennox at the border, people start asking questions of him. The police arrive and tell him that they found Lennox's wife dead, and that Lennox is wanted for murder. Marlowe defends his friend at the police station, but the cops question him for three days. They finally let him go when they find out that Lennox has killed himself and left a signed confession to the murder. But Marlowe doesn't believe that Lennox killed his wife or that Lennox committed suicide. As he begins work on a related case, and as his hunches start to become serious suspicions, he finds himself drawn into increasingly complex situations in which his smart mouth and prying eyes get him into trouble.
While many crime films take place in the dark alleys of a city, the most riveting scenes in The Long Goodbye take place on deserted, moonlit beaches: it's film noir California style. The vacuous young women who live across from Marlowe walk around topless and sing spiritual mantras, blissfully unaware of the cops and mobsters who ogle them from Marlowe's apartment.
Although Robert Altman's direction (Nashville, M*A*S*H, The Player) sometimes becomes too atmospheric, his trademark use of overlapping dialogue, slurred lines, and slow approach shots amplify the tension of the plot. Gould's Marlowe is a treat, a classic study in intelligent cool. Marlowe has been played in other movies by Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Montgomery, and Robert Mitchum, but Gould reinvents this character. Laid back and wry, he never announces himself; instead, he shuffles along the streets of L.A., chuckling at his own muttered jokes.
After seeing this movie, I realized in retrospect how much the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing owes to this film (of course, it also has debts to many other film noir classics)--the final murder scene in Miller's Crossing echoes the final scene in Altman's film. If you like the Coen Brothers' films, you'll probably like The Long Goodbye: it's a great rainy day film. What other movie features six versions of the the same song ("The Long Goodbye") sung by six different bands?
Rating (1-5): 4.0
The Long Goodbye (1973)
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