A quirky-dark slice of Southern California life from Hollywood to Malibu Colony and across the border at Tijuana deep into Mexico Noir - The Long Goodbye is 50s noir updated to the 1970s where everyone is addicted and/or up to one of the Seven Deadly Sins: nicotine, booze, sex, money, violence, adultery, misogyny, lying, disappearing, murder, repartee.
Four Philip Marlowes: From top left, ????, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell. For further reading: https://cladriteradio.com/movies-best-philip-marlowe/
Screenplay by Leigh Brackett (1915 - 1978), directed by Robert Altman, Elliot Gould joins a long Rogues Gallery portraying Philip Marlowe that includes Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, Powers Boothe, James Garner and James Caan.
About Gould’s riff, Roger Ebert said: “When he awakens at the beginning of the movie, he’s a 1953 character in a 1973 world. He wears a dark suit, white shirt and narrow tie in a world of flower power and nude yoga. He chain smokes; no one else smokes. Marlowe carries a $5,000 bill [2023$33,840.42] for most of the movie, but never charges for any of his services. He is a knight errant, and like Don Quixote imperfectly understands the world he inhabits.”
Yep.
Jim Bouton as Terry Lennox asks Marlowe for a ride to Mexico.
Marlowe rolls a 1948 Lincoln Continental and gives baseball player/writer/actor Jim Bouton - as Terry Lennox - a no-questions-asked midnight ride from Malibu Colony to the Mexican border - where Lennox disappears with little explanation.
But Lennox’s wife turns up dead and that gets Marlowe busted and shaken down by detectives who have no patience for his smart-guy act. For three days, Marlowe’s bunkmate is a cameo by a rambling David Carradine. Marlowe is released to learn Lennox has committed suicide.
Case closed? Not even.
Bruce Willis as Butch in Marcellus Wallace’s bar/HQ in Pulp Fiction.
Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe checks his messages and takes calls in a dive bar in The Long Goodbye.
Checking his messages in a dusky bar that might have inspired Marcellus Wallace’s place in Pulp Fiction, Marlowe gets all twisted up with Sterling Hayden’s fading, drunk and bellicose writer Roger Wade who has disappeared from a beach house within the Malibu Colony gates leaving his frustrated, loyal (?) wife Eileen - played by Nina Van Pallandt - to call Marlowe for help: At $50 a day plus expenses. [2023$339]
Marlowe makes it home to be greeted by half-naked yoga girls, find his cat is missing and get shaken down again by Mark Rydell’s Polanski-in-Chinatownish gangster Marty Augustine who is sure Marlowe has the $355,000 [2023$2,402,670.03] Terry Lennox owes him.
He’s breaking shabat. He wants his money and he wants it NOW!
[What’s in the case? Where’s the case? Sound familiar?]
Schwarzenegger strips down to his skivvies under orders from gangster Marty Augustine. Marlowe refuses.
If they handed out Best Supporting Actor Oscars to cats, Morris the orange one-take-tabby woulda won it for The Long Goodbye.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is hired muscle for the gangster - all muscle and threat and no lines. Latigo Beach/Laugh In alumni Henry Gibson plays a sketchy mental health grifter Dr. Verringer. And Marlowe’s picky-but-obedient orange one-take-tabby is Morris of the 9 Lives cat food commercials.
The Long Goodbye comes and goes through the Malibu Colony gates, watched over by a cautious, comic gate guard who subjects everyone to his impressions of Walter Brennan, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant.
23844 Malibu Road as seen from Malibu Road.
23844 Malibu Road - I think - where Roger Wade’s house was shot in The Long Goodbye.
The production seemed to have free access into the Colony, but insiders say permission to shoot movies within the Malibu Movie Colony has been kapu going way back.
Online sources claim Roger Wade’s beach house was Altman’s own home. Twitter shows Altman’s house two doors east from the Lautner half-dome house (now owned by Ed Norton), but the street address appears to be at 23844 Malibu Road - outside the gates.
There’s a scene with Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade and Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe talking man to man in a backyard that is supposed to be Malibu Colony but what’s that greenery in the background?
Roger Wade and Philip Marlowe drink Aquavit and talk man to man in the Colony - or is it? The greenery in the background says it’s somewhere else.
"The Long Goodbye has a scene with Elliot Gould arriving on the Malibu Road outside the house once owned by Bing Crosby in the '50s.
The beginning of the scene is several women tennis players walking by and then Elliot Gould goes thru the side gate.”
However the inside scenes are at a different house all together. A nice remembrance of Malibu and how it was in the 1960’s
The Wade House w/ Sterling Hayden and Elliot Gould - (what's the greenery in the background?) - this is Malibu Cove Colony (around the point from Latigo)
In a Facebook discussion about The Long Goodbye, a long-time Malibu local commented: “Been at the Altman’s house in Malibu Cove Colony many times when he owned it - just through the fence from Latigo.”
The beach and party scenes don’t seem to be anywhere along the Colony or Malibu Road, based on what’s in the background. Might have to watch The Long Goodbye and decide for yourself where those Malibu locations are - and whether the movie is worth seeing and suggesting to others.
Spoiler alert: The Big Finish of The Long Goodbye.
The Long Goodbye is considered one of Altman’s classics, along with M.A.S.H, Nashville and Popeye - which makes sense as his movies are renowned/reviled for characters who mutter under their breath like Popeye, or talk offscreen. This is a nervous, chaotic movie with a style and pacing true to the early 1970s - like Bullit and the Dirty Harry movies - which some find stylish and others find annoying: "I did watch the whole thing" said one Colony resident. "and I thought it was stunningly bad and awkward. And how weird is the use of that song over and over in so many iterations, including mariachi. I don’t even get the meaning of it. Drugs had to be involved but yes, I liked the ending."
A Knight Errant, Elliot Gould as Phillip Marlowe goes above and beyond his $50-a-day [2023$339], and expenses and gets jailed, slapped around, threatened, used and abused - but in the end he makes things right.
An abrupt, surprise and satisfying ending that departs from the novel, right up there with the finales of Cinema Paradiso, L.A. Confidential, Robo Cop and Apocalypto.
Margaret was right. If you see her, flow her a Fro Yo.
(Thanks to MC and Tim Weil for input, insight and direction to Ebert’s review. For further reading: http://cinephiliabeyond.org/long-goodbye-robert-altman-leigh-bracketts-unique-fascinating-take-chandler-film-noir/ )