Robert Altman’s New Hollywood neo-noir “The Lengthy Goodbye” has all of the markings of old-fashioned movie noir – a non-public eye, a femme fatale, a twisty crime-driven story, seedy characters, and so forth. However Altman’s movie is simply as a lot a stiff jab at traditional noir, a revisionist incarnation, and at instances a borderline mockery. And what higher solution to poke enjoyable at a “style” (and annoy its followers) than by utilizing one in every of its most famed characters as your centerpiece.

As I’ve written earlier than, I like movie noir. And whereas they don’t come round fairly often today, I’ll be first in line each time one does. However I additionally like Altman’s distinctive and interesting spin. It’s entertaining from begin to end and it options lots of the traits I search for and love in a movie noir. However Altman and screenwriter Leigh Brackett (who was the co-writer of the 1946 Humphrey Bogart noir traditional “The Massive Sleep”) take a number of of these exact same traits and switch them on their heads. The outcomes are fairly nice.

It begins with the lead character, noir stalwart Philip Marlowe, this time performed by Elliott Gould. What higher solution to prod the “style” than by one in every of its most well-known protagonists? Altman’s Marlowe isn’t almost as sharp. He routinely appears one step behind. He’s even a little bit of a sap. And he usually comes throughout as a person out of time (a Forties gumshoe in Seventies Hollywood). It seeps out in every part from his chain-smoking (nobody else smokes) to the 1948 Lincoln Continental Cabriolet he drives round city.

Reasonably than the first-person narration that usually accompanies movie noirs, right here the haggard Marlowe continuously mumbles to himself. It’s largely early on (Altman appears to overlook about it within the second half) and the bits we’re capable of make out might be fairly humorous. He lives in a high flooring L.A. condo the place he retains to himself outdoors of his occasional exchanges with the free-spirited hippie women subsequent door. And there’s his picky-eating cat (there’s an ideal early scene the place Marlowe goes to the grocery store at 3AM to get cat meals – terrifically written, shot, and edited).

One night Marlowe’s drab routine is shaken when he’s paid a go to by his good pal Terry Lennox (performed by baseball participant Jim Bouton). Terry wants assist getting out of city so he asks Marlowe for a experience throughout the Southern border to Tijuana. It’s suspicious however Marlowe doesn’t ask any questions. When he will get again Marlowe is visited by LAPD detectives who take him in for questioning. We be taught they’re in search of Terry and are ready to cost him with the homicide of his spouse, Sylvia. Marlowe doesn’t cooperate and finally ends up spending three days within the county jail with little to no rationalization.

After Marlowe is set free he pushes the cops for info. They inform him Terry was discovered lifeless in Mexico of an obvious suicide. Marlowe isn’t having any of it. “I don’t consider he killed her. I don’t consider he killed himself.” He needs solutions, however first he’s approached by Eileen Wade (Nina van Pallandt) who occurs to reside in the identical neighborhood as Terry and Sylvia. She needs Marlowe to search out her alcoholic husband Roger (Sterling Hayden), a blustering big who has been gone for every week. Marlowe agrees to assist, however little does he know, his seek for Roger finally ends up setting him on the trail to search out out the reality about Terry.

As with all good noir – even yet another targeted on bucking traits than following them – we get an array of mysterious characters. Along with Pallandt’s Eileen and Hayden’s Roger, we get a extremely good Mark Rydell enjoying a harmful gangster named Marty Augustine. Henry Gibson pops up enjoying a bizarro Dr. Verringer. There’s even a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger making a enjoyable uncredited look.

The supporting work is sweet all through, however it all comes all the way down to the wisecracking Gould – messy and unkept, with a cigarette loosely dangling from the nook of his mouth. He’s the particular sauce that makes the entire thing work and an ideal match for the form of film Altman is capturing for. Throw within the jazzy rating from none apart from John Williams and Vilmos Zsigmondy’s well-calibrated cinematography and you’ve got an immensely entertaining noir that gleefully goes towards the grain.