OK, Tubi may be a far better streaming service than I gave it credit for. Yes, the ad breaks are annoying, but The Long Goodbye? Robert Altman’s take on the works of Raymond Chandler, doing both the standard Altman view of the world mixed together with film noir? That movie was on there? I hadn’t seen it, but I do like me some good noir. Granted, Altman isn’t generally my favorite, and I know lead actor Elliot Gould mostly for his lighter, more comedic work.
Oh, and apparently, it is something of a comedy. OK, let’s check it out.
Private eye Philip Marlowe (Gould) is woken up in the middle of the night by his finicky cat’s demands for food. He gets up, says hi to his neighbors–a group of young women perpetually doing yoga on their balcony wearing as little as possible and then even less–before going out, getting something else, and eventually giving up. The cat later gets out, and Marlowe can’t seem to find the cat again despite asking around. Is that symbolic of something? I don’t know, but as someone often woken up in the middle of the night by a hungry cat, I can relate. It also adds to a little bit of comedy later when a smart-mouthed clerk at the 24 hour supermarket runs into Marlowe again later when both have been arrested for different crimes and they take a moment to catch up. It’s that kind of movie.
I kinda love that kind of movie.
The main plot, such as it is, involves Marlowe’s friend Terry Lennox (baseball player Jim Bouton, one of many unorthodox casting decisions Altman made). Terry shows up one night with a scratch across his face because he got into another fight with his wife Sylvia. Can Marlowe take him to Mexico? Sure. But then Marlowe finds the police waiting for him when he gets home. Sylvia was murdered, and Terry is the top suspect. Marlowe, as a private detective, knows just enough about how police procedure works to keep his mouth shut, but that gets him arrested as an accessory. He gets out only when Terry turns up dead in Mexico of an apparent suicide. Marlowe doesn’t believe Terry has killed himself or murdered Sylvia. But his own life has other issues as a woman (Nina van Pallandt) hires him to find her missing husband (Sterling Hayden), a Hemmingway-esque author who disappeared somewhere without telling her.
Oh, and there’s also a professional gambler who wants some money Terry supposedly ran off with, convinced Marlowe has it for some reason. Among that guy’s muscle is a young, mustachioed, and silent Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he doesn’t even get any lines or his name in the credits. Can Marlowe crack a few cases and maybe find his cat?
It’s hard to say much about this movie since it is both a serious mystery (when it works on the case) and doesn’t take itself that seriously. John Williams wrote the score, and the song “The Long Goodbye” seems to be the only song worth mentioning in this entire universe, but the different ways it gets played is by itself rather creative, going from a jazzy riff to a funeral match to something like a fast-paced rock song at different points. That’s rather creative and silly at the same time. So is how Marlowe finds himself giving a man pointers on how to follow him, and there’s a security guard that does impressions of old actors for no clear reason other than he simply can. Marlowe’s neighbors seem to be there to distract anyone who stops by his apartment other than Marlowe himself, and he’s good enough at his job to do what he needs to do when he actually seems inclined to do it.
I had previously seen Marlowe as a character played by Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep. Now, I outright loved that movie when I saw it, and while Gould is quite good in the role, he’s no Bogart. He likewise doesn’t try to be anymore than Altman is trying to be Howard Hawks. Really, I had a lot of fun with this one, and while it’s not going to be one of my new favorites, I am certainly very glad I found it.
Grade: B+
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