Story of movie The Long Goodbye Film :
The Long Goodbye is a 1973 thriller film directed by Robert Altman and based on Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel of the same title. The screenplay was written by Leigh Brackett, who cowrote the screenplay for The Big Sleep in 1946. The film stars Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe and features Sterling Hayden, Nina Van Pallandt, Jim Bouton, and Mark Rydell.
| The Long Goodbye | |
|---|---|
theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Robert Altman |
| Produced by | Elliott Kastner Jerry Bick |
| Screenplay by | Leigh Brackett |
| Based on | The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler |
| Starring | Elliott Gould Nina van Pallandt Sterling Hayden |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Cinematography | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Edited by | Lou Lombardo |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 112 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.7 million |
The story's period was moved from 1949–50 to 1970s Hollywood. The Long Goodbye has been described as "a study of a moral and decent man cast adrift in a selfish, self-obsessed society where lives can be thrown away without a backward glance ... and any notions of friendship and loyalty are meaningless."
Screenplay
Late one night, private investigator Philip Marlowe is visited by his close friend Terry Lennox, who asks for a lift from Los Angeles to the California–Mexico border at Tijuana. Marlowe obliges. On returning home, Marlowe is met by two police detectives, who accuse Lennox of having murdered his rich wife, Sylvia. Marlowe refuses to give them any information, so they arrest him. After he is jailed for three days, the police release him, because they have learned that Lennox has committed suicide in Mexico. The police and the press seem to believe it is an obvious case, but Marlowe does not accept the official facts.
Marlowe is hired by Eileen Wade, the platinum-blonde trophy wife of Roger Wade, an alcoholic novelist with writer's block, whose macho, Hemingway-like persona is proving self-destructive. She asks that Marlowe find her missing husband. He has had regular alcoholic binges and days-long disappearances from their Malibu home in the past. In the course of investigating Mrs. Wade's missing husband, Marlowe visits the subculture of private detoxification clinics for rich alcoholics and drug addicts. He locates and recovers Roger Wade and learns that the Wades knew the Lennoxes socially. He suspects that there is more to Lennox's suicide and the murder of Sylvia. Marlowe incurs the wrath of gangster Marty Augustine, who wants money returned that Lennox owed him. Augustine maims his mistress to demonstrate what could happen to Marlowe, saying, "That's someone I love. You, I don't even like."
After a side-trip to Mexico, where officials corroborate the details of Lennox's death, Marlowe returns to the Wades' house. A party breaks up after an argument over Roger's unpaid bill from the detoxification clinic. Later that night, Eileen and Marlowe are interrupted when she sees a drunken Roger wandering into the sea; before they can stop him, he drowns. Eileen confesses that Roger had been having an affair with Sylvia, and might have killed her. Marlowe tells this to the police, who remain satisfied that Roger's time at the clinic provides an alibi.
Marlowe visits Augustine, whose missing money has been returned. Marlowe sees Eileen driving away. He returns to Mexico, where he bribes local officials into revealing the truth. They confess to having set up Terry's apparent suicide and admit he is alive and well in a Mexican villa. Marlowe finds Terry, who admits to killing Sylvia. He reveals he is having an affair with Eileen and gloats that Marlowe fell for his manipulations, saying the PI was "a born loser." Marlowe says, "Yeah, I even lost my cat." He shoots and kills Terry, then walks away, passing Eileen, who is on her way to meeting Terry. Marlowe pulls out his harmonica and plays it while strolling jauntily down the road.
- Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe
- Nina van Pallandt as Eileen Wade
- Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade
- Mark Rydell as Marty Augustine
- Henry Gibson as Dr. Verringer
- David Arkin as Harry
- Jim Bouton as Terry Lennox
- Warren Berlinger as Morgan
- Pancho Córdova as Doctor
- Enrique Lucero as Jefe
- Rutanya Alda as Rutanya Sweet
- Jack Riley as Riley
- Jerry Jones as Det. Green
- John S. Davies as Det. Dayton
Producers Jerry Bick and Elliott Kastner bought the cinematic rights to The Long Goodbye novel and made a production deal with the United Artists distribution company. They commissioned the screenplay from Leigh Brackett, who had been Kastner's client when he was an agent and had written the script for the Humphrey Bogart version of The Big Sleep. Brackett:
...set the deal with United Artists, and they had a commitment for a film with Elliott Gould, so either you take Elliott Gould or you don't make the film. Elliott Gould was not exactly my idea of Philip Marlowe, but anyway there we were. Also, as far as the story was concerned, time had gone by—it was twenty-odd years since the novel was written, and the private eye had become a cliché. It had become funny. You had to watch out what you were doing. If you had Humphrey Bogart at the same age that he was when he did The Big Sleep, he wouldn't do it the same way. Also, we were faced with a technical problem of this enormous book, which was the longest one Chandler ever wrote. It's tremendously involuted and convoluted. If you did it the way he wrote it, you would have a five-hour film.
Brackett says that Brian G. Hutton was originally attached as director and wanted the script structured so that "the heavy had planned the whole thing from the start" but when writing it she found the idea contrived.
The producers offered the script to both Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich to direct it. Both refused the offer, but Bogdanovich recommended Robert Altman.
United Artists president David Picker may have picked Gould to play Marlowe as a ploy to get Altman to direct. At the time, Gould was in professional disfavor because of his rumored troubles on the set of A Glimpse of Tiger, in which he bickered with costar Kim Darby, fought with director Anthony Harvey, and acted erratically. Consequently, he had not worked in nearly two years; nevertheless, Altman convinced Bick that Gould suited the role. United Artists had Elliott Gould undergo the usual employment medical examination and a psychological examination attesting to his mental stability.
Jim Bouton, cast as Marlowe's friend Terry Lennox, was not an actor. He was a former Major League Baseball pitcher and the author of the bestselling book Ball Four.
Dan Blocker was originally cast in the role of Roger Wade but died before filming started. The film is dedicated to his memory in the closing credits.
Screenplay
In adapting Chandler's book, Leigh Brackett had problems with its plot, which she felt was "riddled with cliches", and faced the choice of making it a period piece or updating it. Altman received a copy of the script while shooting Images in Ireland. He liked the ending because it was so out of character for Marlowe. He agreed to direct but only if the ending was not changed.
Brackett recalled meeting Altman while doing Images. "We conferred about ten o'clock in the morning and yakked all day, and I went back to the hotel and typed all the notes and went back the next day. In a week we had it all worked out. He was a joy to work with. He had a very keen story mind."
Altman and Brackett spent a lot of time talking over the plot. Altman wanted Marlowe to be a loser. He even nicknamed Gould's character Rip Van Marlowe, as if he had been asleep for 20 years, had woken up, and was wandering around Los Angeles in the early 1970s but "trying to invoke the morals of a previous era". Her first draft was too long, and she shortened it, but the ending was inconclusive. She had Marlowe shooting Terry Lennox. Altman conceived of the film as a satire and made several changes to the script, like having Roger Wade commit suicide and having Marty Augustine smash a Coke bottle across his girlfriend's face. Altman said, "it was supposed to get the attention of the audience and remind them that, in spite of Marlowe, there is a real world out there, and it is a violent world".
Principal photography
Altman did not read all of Chandler's book and instead utilized Raymond Chandler Speaking, a collection of letters and essays. He gave copies of this book to the cast and crew, advising them to study the author's literary essays. The opening scene with Philip Marlowe and his cat came from a story a friend of Altman's told him about his cat only eating one type of cat food. Altman saw it as a comment on friendship. The director decided that the camera should never stop moving, and put it on a dolly. However, the camera movements would counter the actions of the characters so that the audience would feel like a voyeur. To compensate for the harsh light of Southern California, Altman gave the film a soft pastel look reminiscent of old postcards from the 1940s. When it came to the scenes between Philip Marlowe and Roger Wade, Altman had Elliott Gould and Sterling Hayden ad lib most of their dialogue because, according to the director, Hayden was drunk and stoned on marijuana most of the time. Altman had originally wanted Dan Blocker for the role of Wade but he died just before principal photography began. He was reportedly thrilled by Hayden's performance, despite him being second choice to Blocker. Altman's home in Malibu Colony was used as the location for the scenes that took place in Wade's house.
The soundtrack of The Long Goodbye features two songs, "Hooray for Hollywood" and the eponymous "The Long Goodbye", composed by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. It was Altman's idea to have every occurrence of the latter song arranged differently, from hippie chant to supermarket muzak to radio music, setting the mood for the hero's encounters with eccentric Californians, while pursuing his case.
Varèse Sarabande released selections from Williams' score on a CD in 2004 paired with the album re-recording of Williams' music from Fitzwilly; in 2015 Quartet Records issued a CD entirely devoted to The Long Goodbye.
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