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The Long Goodbye
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Product Description
Elliott Gould (Busting) Gives One of His Best Performances As a Quirky, Mischievous Philip Marlowe in Robert Altman's (Thieves Like Us) Fascinating and Original Send-Up of Raymond Chandler's Classic Detective Story. Co-Starring Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell and Henry Gibson with a Screenplay Leigh Brackett (The Big Sleep), the Long Goodbye Is a Gloriously Inspired Tribute to Hollywood with An Ending That's As Controversial As Is It Provocative. Private Eye Philip Marlowe (Gould) Faces the Most Bizarre Case of His Life, When a Friend's Apparent Suicide Turns Into a Double Murder Involving a Sexy Blonde, a Disturbed Gangster and a Suitcase of Drug Money. But As Marlowe Stumbles Toward the Truth, He Soon Finds Himself Lost in a Maze of Sex and Deceit - Only to Discover That in L.A., If Love Is Dangerous, Friendship Is Murder.
Product details
- MPAA rating : R (Restricted)
- Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 2.72 ounces
- Item model number : KLSC1487DVD
- Director : Robert Altman
- Media Format : NTSC, Anamorphic, Multiple Formats, Dolby, Widescreen
- Run time : 1 hour and 52 minutes
- Release date : November 25, 2014
- Actors : Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson
- Subtitles: : English
- Studio : Kl Studio Classics
- ASIN : B00MYMTBCA
- Country of Origin : USA
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #34,770 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #1,689 in Mystery & Thrillers (Movies & TV)
- Customer Reviews:
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The first thing I recall is that in spite of the fact that this may be Elliot Gould's best performance outside of the film M*A*S*H, I think the stars of the film are director Altman, cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond, screenwriter, Leigh Brackett, (relatively unknown at the time) composer John Williams, and a strong nod to the presence of actor Sterling Hayden. They all contribute to the image of a character from New York City the '40s transplanted to Malibu in the '70s. Gould's Philip Marlowe is the film noir gumshoe, but he lacks all the panache of the famous earlier actors who filled that role such as Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum. He has certain skills, but none of the clever competence of the greatest of film noir detectives, Jake Giddes in "Chinatown", who has a nose for incongruities and the talent to hunt them down. Gould's Marlowe seems buffeted about by both the police (with whom Giddes has a respectable relation), who also seem to be caught in Brackett's time warp (no cool Joe Fridays here)and the hoods, lead by a gangster, Marty Augustine, who does seem to have made the transition from 40s hood to 70s wise guy. Situations with both get resolved behind Marlowe's back, and Marlowe has no clue to how that happened.
Although Altman may not do it quite as often as Woody Allen, I suspect in this movie he was intentionally copying some of the conventions of "film noir", and making fun of them just a bit. Almost all the interesting stuff seems to happen at night, or in closed rooms where you can't see the daylight. The song, credited to John Williams, sounds just like something which may have been written for an early John Houston film or the film "Laura" which had a famous theme covered by lots of major jazz performers. It seems so utterly not California for Gould's Marlowe to always wear a suit jacket and tie, when all the other characters are dressed as you would expect in 1970s LA. Just as the ending to "Chinatown" is a surprise which I never saw coming, the end to "The Long Goodbye" succeeds in the same way.
What seems so puzzling is that there are three different plot lines early in the movie, all of which are connected by nothing except the common location, a gated, exclusive colony of residences on the beach in Malibu. The three plots seem to have nothing connecting them until the last 15 minutes. One benefit of this disconnect is that we can appreciate the role of Sterling Hayden, who, I am convinced, is patterned after the last years of Earnest Hemingway. This and his appearance in "Dr. Strangelove" may be his two most memorable film appearances. However, his appearance here is a nice reminder that Hayden began his career in some notable film noir classics such as "The Asphalt Jungle".
The showpiece of Gould's performance is the first 10 minutes, where he is virtually the only speaking character, who does a monologue for the benefit of his cat. Here is were all his anomalies begin, as he puts on a tie to go out to a 24 hour supermarket to buy cat food at 3 AM.
According to Wikipedia, the film was not well received at first, but, as I said at the outset, I was immediately impressed by it when I saw it in the theatre. It has one of the prime qualities of a film worth buying. It is rewatchable, maybe once a year or so. The next time I watch it, I would be especially attentive to whether there are early clues which tie the three plot lines together.
By the way, even though his role is uncredited, you can't miss Arnold Schwarzenegger as one of the gangster's "muscle". David Carradine also has an uncredited role, but he is less easy to spot.
No, what made me pick up "T.L.G." was something else altogether; something unexpected: the theme music. The music was composed by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. I stumbled across a Youtube excerpt, and there was my jazz hero, Jack Sheldon, singing the movie's theme song. That alone made me want to get this (I collect most everything with J.S.). But, just as with the more famous movie "Laura", the theme song gets sounded throughout the entire picture. However, unlike "Laura", "The Long Goodbye" - that's the name of the tune as well - goes through many different styles and permutations during the course of the film. As a result, the movie doesn't feel like it's just an advertisement for a possible radio hit.
The best example of this is in the first of two scenes filmed down in Mexico. Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is trying to get information from the village authorities as to how and when his friend, Terry, allegedly died down there. During the course of their somewhat bizarre discussions, a poor sounding village band plays "T.L.G." tune while accompanying a funeral cortege through the town's cobbled streets. Then we immediately segue to a party scene back at the Malibu Beach home of Mr. and Mrs. Wade, where a few revelers who are crowding around a modest upright piano, crank out a sort of fast, bossa nova rendition of the same tune - almost Brazil '66 like. The juxtaposition of these two scenes and two styles couldn't possibly be more stark and dramatic. It's almost as though the theme song is used as a Wagnerian leitmotif throughout this film.
As for Marlowe himself, I think Elliott Gould is brilliant. Much has been made of Altman's "Rip Van Marlowe" approach - a Marlowe who wakes up in a far more indifferent 1970s. Marlowe doesn't know the D.A. here, and the L.A. Police are completely indifferent to him. If anything, he's just a nuissance. They regard him as though he were a doctor who's just a quack. This time, Marlowe has no friends downtown. His credentials mean nothing. But that also permits Marlowe to be more freelance than ever. He's now able to think fully for himself, and is better able to make quick assessments of the situation. This pays off in the end, as Marlowe still clings to his 1940's, good world/bad world values. Given that fact, it's all the more relevant that Mr. Wade - Sterling Hayden - keeps referring to Marlowe as "Marlboro", or "The Marlboro Man" (to his wife).
And, of course, the scenes with Elliott Gould and Sterling Hayden are quite famous for Hayden's quick witted, turn-on-a-dime improvisations. He plays a burned out writer who has turned to the bottle in hopes finding some further inspiration - a tired cliche' if there every was one. But Hayden twists this hackneyed theme to his advantage: he's totally over-the-top in the best tradition of the excessive 1970s. These scenes alone are worth the price of admission.
All in all, for whatever faults it may possess, there's also an awful lot going for this 1970s, "Rip Van Marlowe" rendition of "The Long Goodbye" ("it's a loooong goodbye, . . and it happens everyday").
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In the end, it isn't so hard to follow, which is a relief after The Big Sleep. The ironic posture - this is a film noir played for laughs, but not so obviously that it loses its shine - is continually fascinating. Mark Rydell pops up as a gangster, at one point very violent, even if briefly, which I hated, but the consequences don't seem as bad as you might have feared. He is totally cracked, and suggests in one scene that they all strip for the sake of greater honesty. It also means that there is something to balance out the picture of Marlowe's neighbours, a group of girls hanging out on their balcony topless. It could hardly be more 70s. Anyway they do start to strip, one of them being Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has a non-speaking part, but is wearing a superb pair of underpants on his very buff body, that looks like a girdle. All this is revealed quite casually, picked up on by a later scene where we see Marlowe emerge from a hospital bed in the same style of underwear. It is typical of the consistent look that Altman achieves here, which extends also to the music. What a beautiful song The Long Goodbye is - heard in innumerable versions throughout the film to reflect changes in mood. There is beauty everywhere here, including the Mexican landscape which we see as the Mexican police car rolls through it ... everything is kept in motion, apparently to give the sense of the viewer being a voyeur. Whatever, I think we should have had more shots of Arnie, in his absolute prime ... and Gould also ... what style, what gentle unflappability - a character transformed! It seems incredible that the film didn't do that well on first release, it looks so extraordinary now.
吹替も味わいがあります。
Qu'importe ces critiques, ce film n'est pas un remake, même pas une réinterprétation, ce « long goodbye » est une pure création du cinéma des seventies : c'est un chef d'aeuvre, un grand film, plus riche, plus nuancé, plus complexe et plus passionnant qu'il n'y paraît. Il prolonge la réussite commerciale de MASH, mais c'est mieux que MASH.
Altman ne cherche pas à reproduire la tonalité film noir et l'ambiance noir et blanc des privés de Chandler ou de Hawks, au contraire, il projette Marlowe / Gould en costume et Lincoln noirs d'avant guerre dans une Californie seventies colorée, déjantée et déjà désabusée : Gould, contrairement à Bogart, n'y maîtrise pas grand chose, il se fait embobiner toutes les 10 minutes par les flics, les mafieux, ses clients, les amis (« it's OK with me ») et finit par craquer de façon inattendue et radicale : c'est un naïf qui croyait à l'amitié mais à qui on ne la fera plus.
La musique nous signale avec insistance cette volonté de rupture : le film s'ouvre sur fond musical rétro de ballroom des années 40 pour entrer brusquement dans la modernité de la suite d'accords appuyés et dramatiques du titre « the long goodbye » systématiquement réinterprété tout au long du film (j'ai compté 17 versions différentes en incluant la version muzak de la superette, la cérémonie funèbre mexicaine et la sonnerie de la villa de Roger Wade : chercher, il en manque peut être).
La rupture est également signifiée avec les petits sketches irrespectueux imposés aux visiteurs du lotissement des Wade par le gardien qui imite James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Cary Grant pour finir sur un éblouissant Walter Brennan (stumpy dans le Rio Bravo de Hawks)
C'est un film assez désopilant, parfois burlesque, mais c'est aussi un film grave sur la dissimulation, la manipulation, le mensonge..
Pour finir, quelques détails sur lesquels il faudra s'arrêter :
- la scène d'ouverture qui annonce la première dissimulation, celle de Marlowe qui essaye de mystifier son chat (qui ne sera pas dupe), en transvasant une pâté ordinaire dans la boîte de son Coury Brand favori
- l'appartement de Marlowe, extraordinaire « high tower appartment » habité par des voisines adeptes de bougies, de yoga, de brownies au s***, qui se pavanent à moitié à poil toute la journée en révisant de façon approximative les capitales des états
- Gould chez les flics, qui improvise une imitation hilarante de Al Jolson avec l'aide d'un maquillage à base d'encre destinée aux empreintes digitales
- un futur gouverneur de la Californie, pas encore acteur, tout juste figurant garde du corps très bodybuildé en slip moule bite : craquant ...