Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

dierregi "The long goodbye" is Chandler's longest book and my favorite one. A moody, nostalgic novel about betrayal and the corruptive power of money. Being a Chandler's fan, I felt compelled to watch this movie. Not being an Altman fan, I feared I was going to dislike it.In fact, I positively hated it. Apparently I am not the only one, since the movie bombed when it came out. But lately opinions changed. According to the "official" story, the whole point was to make a looser of Marlowe and to show how old fashioned his values were in the "modern" world of the 70s. To which I can only say that Altman could have made a movie about any looser whatsoever, without dragging Marlowe into his mess. Marlowe's friend, Terry Lennox, is the real looser, but not a killer. Beautiful Eileen Wade is the manipulator around whom the plot revolves. In the movie, we have instead a terribly mistcast Gould, playing dumb Marlowe to an equally terrible Van Palland, expressionless and flat as Eileen. Despite much of the plot having being cut out, the movie drags on for almost two hours with plenty of useless scenes (cat feeding, hippy neighbours) until the denouement. In less than two minutes, we are shown that Marlowe was completely wrong about Lennox but ready to fix the problem, gangster style.That was definitely not what Chandler's Marlowe would have done. Altman just spoiled a great fictional character for yet another sordid, sad, depressing tale about disgusting humankind. It says a lot about Altman egotism that he blamed the failure of this movie on "wrong marketing" (as a thriller instead of as a satire), just as he blamed politicians for not getting an Oscar. He could not accept the fact that some (many) of his movies are just not good enough.Unfortunately it is a truth universally acknowledged that no matter how bad a movie, sooner or later it will be "rediscovered" and labelled as a "classic", misunderstood by the audience. This is what is going on here, coupled with the semi-god status of some directors, who apparently cannot get anything wrong and are constantly worshipped by snobbish viewers who think they know better than the average audience.

adonis98-743-186503 Starring Elliott Gould The Long Goodbye is about Detective Philip Marlowe who tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife. And by that you except something good right but no this is a movie that feels and looks like it was made in the 70's and the only interesting thing in it was Arnold Schwarzenegger's cameo and even tho he didn't speak a word he looked menacing because he's the freaking Terminator and he has a mustache in this one another cameo from a famous actor is the late David Carradine known from the movies Kill Bill Volume 1 and Kill Bill Volume 2. In the end The Long Goodbye tries to be many things but the leading actor and a very fun cameo by The Terminator is what might keep the audience asleep. (Rating: 7/10) (By Percent: 70%)

robert-temple-1 Raymond Chandler purists did not like this film because it was a very comprehensive update from the 1940s to the 1970s. Philip Marlowe became a 1970s person, and so did his ambiance. The director Robert Altman reconceptualised 'the whole Chandler thing', and I believe he pulled it off. The film is based on Chandler's novel of the same title, but with many updated touches added. Marlowe now lives in a penthouse apartment overlooking L.A. and beside him there is an apartment full of what used to be called 'ditsy girls', who are 'spaced-out' (another obsolescent term) on 24 hour drugs. They like parading themselves topless on their balcony and doing somersaults in a semi-naked state. They are merely a backdrop to the film and are never fully explained, except that Marlowe does once say that they own a shop selling special scented candles somewhere (which can hardly explain where the money comes from to pay their rent and the fact that none of them has any kind of job). When one of the girls asks Marlowe to buy her two boxes of brownie mix, we are meant to be aware of Alice B. Toklas's recipe for marijuana brownies and know why she wants to make brownies. Altman must have his little jokes. Another is that a minor character in the film is called Miss Tewkesbury, a tribute to his friend Joan Tewkesbury, who had been a townsperson in Altman's MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971) and was during the filming of THE LONG GOODBYE writing his next film THIEVES LIKE US (1974) and the following year also wrote NASHVILLE (1975). She also acted in both those films. So much for 'in' jokes. For the new model Marlowe, Elliott Gould was the perfect choice. As Altman himself liked to say, 80% of his success was due to his casting. Nina van Pallandt was also perfect as the scheming, glamorous wife of an alcoholic writer who has writer's block, played by Sterling Hayden (another example of perfect casting). The ending of the film differs from that of the book in a significant way which I cannot reveal because of IMDb rules, but I think it works very well. The film reeks of the atmosphere of the now long-vanished 1970s, just as Chandler's books reeked of the atmosphere of his own earlier era. Since so much of Chandler depends on atmosphere, one has a choice either to replicate the original faithfully or do an entire conversion job. Altman chose the latter course. The story of suspicion, betrayal, lies, murder, evasion, flight, and fear transfers perfectly well to a newer era. One could even do it all over again, and place it in the present era, if one were a genius like Robert Altman, that is. If one is not a genius, then watch out. The contemporary issue of the DVD has an excellent 'extra' of a documentary profile of Altman, in which he gives extensive interviews, with clips from his films, and, yes, Miss Tewkesbury is there as well. No escaping her. Alan Rudolph has a lot to saying the documentary about his mentor and master. He was second assistant director on THE LONG GOODBYE. Watch this, and let it all hang out. But don't eat the brownies.

georgewilliamnoble Hello to a missing movie of my youth, i remember well the film coming out and my interest in it, but after a 43 year wait thanks to DVD i have ticked off Altman's "The Long Goodbye". As a piece of drama, as a piece of detective fiction, as a piece of the private eye genre and Chandler, it is as i suspected a complete failure. The setting is all wrong, the then modern day LA. The running gag of the topless hippie teenage neighbours, that Marlowe has so little interest in, perhaps because he has been sacked by his demanding cat, is abstract in the extreme, but it is one of a number of off beat jokes that work, at least from the vista of viewing the movie from the distance of 4 and a half decades. Simply as "film Noir" or a detective genre film, let alone as entertainment, little works. Gould is miscast, the plot fragmentary, not always Altman's fault i admit, but as a piece of eccentric 70's cinema, perhaps as modern art, the film is not without several interesting points. Time has made the 1973 setting all but inspired due to the fashions, clothes, make up, attitudes, the big cars or the over written syn ism,so typical of the late Vietnam era. For me the 1967-1974, pr block buster "Jaws"/"Star Wars" era was golden age of mature grown up American cinema, of which Altman's "The Long Goodbye" is a welcome addition, perhaps on a second viewing i will enjoy it more, so for now a interesting plus movie that i give a 7/10 score.