The Long Goodbye (film)
| The Long Goodbye | |
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theatrical release poster
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| 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 |
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Release date
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Running time
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112 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.7 million |
The Long Goodbye is a 1973 neo-noir film directed by Robert Altman and based on Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel of the same name. 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 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."
Late one night, with nothing better to do than feed his fussy cat, 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 three days in jail, the police release him, because Lennox committed suicide in Mexico. It is an open-and-shut case to the police and the press, but the official facts do not sit right with Marlowe.
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 husband, who, despite regular alcoholic binges and days-long disappearances from their Malibu home, now seems to be missing. 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 Terry'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 just to demonstrate what could happen to Marlowe, saying, "That's someone I love. You, I don't even like."
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Wikipedia