The Long Goodbye (1973)

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The Long Goodbye is Robert Altman’s 1973 American neo-noir adapting Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel. The film depicts private detective Philip Marlowe driving his friend Terry Lennox to the Mexican border without questioning the reasons for the urgent trip. Terry’s wife is found murdered shortly after the drive. The police arrest Marlowe as accomplice. After his release, Marlowe takes a missing-persons case involving alcoholic author Roger Wade and his wife Eileen while continuing to investigate the actual circumstances of Terry’s situation. Elliott Gould plays Philip Marlowe. Nina van Pallandt plays Eileen Wade.

Sterling Hayden plays Roger Wade. Jim Bouton plays Terry Lennox. Henry Gibson plays Dr. Verringer. Mark Rydell plays gangster Marty Augustine. David Arkin plays Augustine’s enforcer. Arnold Schwarzenegger has uncredited appearance as one of Augustine’s henchmen. Leigh Brackett wrote the screenplay. Lion’s Gate Films and United Artists produced the film on a budget of approximately 1.7 million dollars, and it grossed modestly on initial release.

Altman takes the tough-guy detective, drops him into 1973 Los Angeles and lets the city grind him down, and I find the result funny, sad and sneaky all at once. Elliott Gould’s mumbling, chain-smoking Marlowe is a gift. I give it an 8 because I admire it enormously, and because its drifting, overlapping style sometimes loses me for a scene or two.

The Long Goodbye works as deliberate destruction of the classical noir detective figure when transferred to 1973 California conditions.

Robert Altman directed the film as criticism of the Marlowe figure that classical noir had treated favorably. Elliott Gould plays Marlowe as anachronistic figure whose 1940s ethical commitments can’t survive contact with 1970s Los Angeles. Marlowe mumbles continuously, smokes constantly, and works with bewildered slowness that contrasts with the surrounding California’s accelerated 1970s social pace. Altman called his Marlowe Rip Van Marlowe to emphasize the character’s temporal displacement.

The film performed modestly on initial release but has aged into critical recognition as one of the more sophisticated American neo-noir productions. Later generations have continued to engage the film’s argument about whether classical noir values can survive contemporary conditions.

The Anachronistic Marlowe

Gould’s Marlowe mumbles continuously, smokes constantly, drives a 1948 Lincoln Continental and moves with a bewildered slowness that clashes with the city’s accelerated pace. He believes in loyalty to friends and in finishing what he starts, and 1973 Los Angeles doesn’t care about either. I think Gould is perfect here, and the sleepy stubbornness he gives Marlowe makes the character’s loyalty feel heroic and ridiculous at the same time.

Altman called his depicted Marlowe Rip Van Marlowe to emphasize the character’s temporal displacement.

The reference invokes Washington Irving’s character who slept twenty years and awoke into incomprehensible new world. Marlowe occupies similar position. He’s been preserved from earlier period and must deal with conditions that his preserved values can’t address. The film allowed Altman to argue about whether classical American values survive contemporary conditions. The argument has aged into ongoing relevance.

Sterling Hayden as Wade

Sterling Hayden plays alcoholic author Roger Wade as real supporting character whose own story works parallel to Marlowe’s investigation. Wade is a Hemingway-style writer whose career has collapsed into substance abuse and domestic violence.

He can’t complete his current manuscript. He can’t manage his marriage. He can’t escape his own destructive patterns. The performance combines physical presence, vocal authority, and the underlying recognition that Wade represents possible Marlowe future if classical American masculinity loses its functional purpose.

Hayden nearly walks off with the film, and his scenes are the ones I think about most. There’s a wounded size to him, a big man collapsing in slow motion, and I believe every drunken minute of it.

Hayden brought his own long career history to the role. He’d appeared in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Killing (1956), Dr. Strangelove (1964), The Godfather (1972), and many other productions. His presence in the supporting role gave Wade weight that conventional supporting casting wouldn’t have provided. Hayden also brought his own struggles with alcohol and his 1951 testimony naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee, and both informed the character. The combination of professional capability and personal experience produced material that conventional acting wouldn’t have generated.

The Altman Approach

Altman directed The Long Goodbye with his usual overlapping dialogue, naturalistic performances and constant background activity. Los Angeles becomes a character through ambient sound and peripheral business, a city running on its own logic whatever the detective story needs. I like all that background activity a lot, and it’s also where the film occasionally loses me, because half-heard lines and wandering scenes can bury a plot point I needed.

Altman’s career produced extensive range across multiple decades including MASH (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1975), The Player (1992), Short Cuts (1993), and many other productions.

His ability to bring naturalistic approach to commercial genre material produced one of the more distinctive American directorial filmographies. Altman died in 2006 having produced one of the more sustained American directorial careers. The Long Goodbye represents one of his strongest individual productions.

Does The Long Goodbye still hold up?

I give The Long Goodbye an 8 because it’s the rare genre picture that argues with its own genre and wins. Gould’s out-of-time Marlowe, Hayden’s ruined Wade and Altman’s sunbaked, indifferent Los Angeles add up to a noir that feels alive. What holds it back for me is the drift, a few stretches where the style wanders off and forgets there’s a mystery to solve.

Watch it if you care about neo-noir, about Altman, or about films that take a genre apart and find something new inside it.

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