The Long Goodbye (1973)

	Directed by: Robert Altman	COUNTRY USA GENRE Neo-noir NORWEGIAN TITLE The Long Goodbye RUNNING TIME 112 minutes
	Produced by: Jerry Bick
	Written by (based on the book by Raymond Chandler): Leigh Brackett

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Philip Marlowe	Elliott Gould	½
Eileen Wade	Nina van Pallandt
Roger Wade	Sterling Hayden
Marty Augustine	Mark Rydell
Dr. Verringer	Henry Gibson	½
Harry	David Arkin	-
Terry Lennox	Jim Bouton	-
Morgan	Warren Berlinger	-
Rutanya Sweet	Rutanya Alda	-
Dave "Socrates"	David Carradine	-
Hood	Arnold Schwarzenegger	-

Review

Robert Altman's trademark aloof, satirical angle gives this adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel of the same name a distant, somewhat inconsequential quality. Perhaps surprisingly, this doesn't necessarily strip away much warmth or fun, because Altman and his players manage to let the story unfold and allow some level of immersion, though the director fails to present a rationale for his satire. It's just there, as if an intrinsic part of Philip Marlowe and the world he inhabits. Elliott Gould's version of Marlowe is neither heroic nor clever; he's more of an involuntary participant in his own life, with the ability to experience but hardly alter events. In Altman's view, the life of the hardboiled detective is deterministic. He's an observer, but without the added pleasures of the voyeur. It’s not the genre's seedy pulp Altman lampoons here, but rather its very existence – which makes the satire neither particularly caustic nor relevant. The Long Goodbye is at its most interesting in its study of the Roger Wade character, played with some gusto by Sterling Hayden. A young Arnold Schwarzenegger appears briefly as one of the villain's henchmen.