Sept. 23, 2026

The Long Goodbye (1973): Philip Marlowe Gets Lost in Robert Altman’s ’70s

Show Notes
Transcript

Philip Marlowe was one of Hollywood's great hard-boiled detectives. So what happens when Robert Altman drops him into 1970s Los Angeles?

Chuck and Matt wrap up Shades of Noir Month with Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), starring Elliott Gould as Raymond Chandler's legendary private detective.In this episode:

Elliott Gould's unconventional take on Philip Marlowe
How screenwriter Leigh Brackett reworked Chandler's novel for a new era
Robert Altman's offbeat approach to the detective story
Marlowe's unwavering loyalty to Terry Lennox
The film's controversial ending—and whether it works
Does The Long Goodbye still groove today?

Join us as we say goodbye to Shades of Noir Month and find out whether Altman's reinvention of Philip Marlowe grooves through the decades or loses its beat.

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WEBVTT

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Are you laughing at me? Yes, you are. You're laughing.

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I see you're laughing. I wouldn't laugh if I were you.

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I'm not laughing.

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Is Terry Lennox alive?

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Are you making.

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Did you have a deal with Terry Lennox? Do you

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think it's funny?

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Funny to steal $ 355, 000.

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From Marty Augustine?

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Jack, let me see that knife. Oh, with pleasure, Marty.

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Give it to me. Harry. Your father was a moral.

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Cut him. What? Cut it. Where?

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Cut it off.

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Cut it off?

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That's what I said.

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Cut it off. Welcome to the Cinematic Flashback Podcast. Get

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ready to hop into the Wayback Machine as we journey

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through the wild, bold, and unforgettable films of the 1970s.

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Each episode, we break down a classic movie or a

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forgotten gem, seeing how it performed then and now. and

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wrapping things up by asking, did it groove through the decades,

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or did it lose its beat? I am your host,

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Chuck Bryan, and today we are reviewing Robert Altman's 1973 film,

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The Long Goodbye, starring Elliot Gould, Nina Van Pallant, Sterling Hayden,

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and Mark Rydell. This is our second and final film

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in our Shades of Noir month. This time, we're going

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back to one of the most famous private detectives in

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American fiction, Philip K. And joining me, as always, is

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Matt Sargent. Matt, I feel like I've just seen you

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two or three times this week. It's good to see

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you again. How are you doing? And more importantly, have

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you been kicked out of your book club yet? No.

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We had the inaugural meeting last night. It was a blast.

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We had a great time. We're reading Lonesome Dove. It's

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such a long book that we only had to read

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to chapter 50, and I only got to chapter 39

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because I was actually reading it on my tablet.

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So you and I got together recently to go and

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see a John Wayne film out at the Narrow.

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We did.

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We saw The Searchers. The reason why I wanted to

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go out and watch The Searchers is because this is

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a film that has inspired many 70s directors and their

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films that they have made. One of them being Taxi Driver,

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which is a great film.

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Funny that we watched The Searchers because The Searchers purportedly

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takes place in sort of maybe a little bit before

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Lonesome Dove, the book takes place. And so it was

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cool that that tied in with the Lonesome Dove and

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kind of also our investigation into how cinema changed in

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the 1970s, because that movie was squarely in the before.

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The Searchers was directed by John Ford. And when you

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think of Hollywood in its golden age, two directors always

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kind of step out. One's John Ford, the other is

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Howard Hawks. But one of the things that really struck

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me was how locked down the camera was. So they

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would put the camera, they would lock it down, they

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would do the scene, and then they would move the camera,

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film it a different way. And then you compare it to, say,

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Robert Altman. The camera's always moving. It's either handheld or

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on something, and there's lots of zooms, and it's always,

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the camera's in motion. After watching so many 70s movies,

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going back and watching The Searchers, I was really struck

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by how locked down everything was.

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I think there was some level of technology involved in that.

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When they were filming back in the 50s and 40s,

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those cameras were absolutely huge. They were mechanical monsters. And

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if they did move the camera, it was some very

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specific ways on tracks and stuff like that. Nothing, anything

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like handheld.

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Okay. So today we're reviewing The Long Goodbye. And this

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is our third Robert Altman film that you and I

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have watched. The first one being... McCabe and Mrs. Miller

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from last year, recommended by a friend of the show,

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Jeff Panano. Then we watched MASH, which was really different

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from the TV show as it had a lot more

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comedic elements that were slightly subversive, that it was comedy,

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but also there was a statement as well. Oh, 100%.

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I think The Long Goodbye has a little bit of

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that same vibe to it.

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Well, I think that's definitely Robert Altman's signature. It's some

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level poking fun or satirizing institutions. And the film we're

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reviewing today is not different. It definitely is taking a

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very different take on a Philip Marlowe film. It seems

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to be the sort of cornerstone of Robert Altman's films.

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He's an interesting character.

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It's like he's deconstructing certain myths and at the same

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time trying to make some kind of commentary along the way.

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Well, this is going to be a shocker to you,

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but I actually did some investigation about this whole thing

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in his career. One of the funny things was he

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probably got MASH because no other director wanted it. And

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they didn't expect much to happen with that film.

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That's right.

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They thought they were safe putting Robert Altman at the

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helm of it. And then what came out was essentially

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a very, very popular film that seriously took on military institutions.

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And I think they were shocked at that. And that actually...

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I think in some ways enabled him to do certain

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things in his career.

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As we finish up our discussion on film noir, I

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thought that it would be a good time to go

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and watch some other films in this genre. I was

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going to ask you if you have ever seen the

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movie The Big Lebowski. Oh, for sure. I love that movie.

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It's so funny. I thought the dude reminded me of

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Elliot Gould's character, The dude is just trying to get

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his carpet cleaned, and then he just kind of floats

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through this entire film where things get worse and worse

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and worse. But then finally, at the very end, it

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all kind of just works out, and the dude abides.

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The dude abides. And in this movie, L.A. Gould's Philip Marlowe,

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sometimes it just feels like he's kind of drifting through.

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Things are just rolling off of him. His version of

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the dude abides is, it's okay with me, man. He

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says that about 100 times. Yeah. Are there other films

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that you've seen that you like that are noir-esque?

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I'm not that big of a fan of the film noir,

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but there is a show on TV called Sugar, and

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it's sci-fi. But the guy is essentially a 1950s detective

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working in modern day L.A. It's a very cool series.

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And if you like this movie, you will love that series.

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Why, Matt? At this point is when we normally do

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our listener feedback. This week, why don't we just go

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ahead and turn this around. What do we want to

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hear from our listeners?

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I want to just call out to our listeners and say, look,

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we like to talk about movies, but we much more

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like to talk about what you guys want to hear about.

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So, please.

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Reach out and give us a shout and say, hey,

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talk more about the directors or, hey, talk more about

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the actual filming and locations. I really love to hear

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about the locations. And we have given locations kind of

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short shrift, I think. But I really, I love to

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stay to the end of a movie and watch where

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they filmed it and what town they filmed it in

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and stuff like that. It's just, it's something I really

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love to do. Please, whatever it is that you love

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about film, that you want us to maybe dig in

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for you or talk about, or maybe call out that

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you asked for this. And so we're really going to

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focus on it. Please do it. We're here to put

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together something you enjoy listening to. So let us know

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what you want to hear and we will do our

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best to include it.

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So just as an example, friend of the show, Jeff

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Johnson asked about the vanishing point, I believe it was.

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And I have that one scheduled for season three. I'm

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writing down film pairings right now. So if there are

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films that you would like to see, let us know.

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We would love to get that feedback.

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To echo what you're saying, Chuck, one of the sort

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of cornerstones of this film is to try to find

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forgotten gems. We do our best to look for them,

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but honestly, we can't watch every film of the 1970s

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and find one. So if you guys know of a

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great film that was released in the 70s that you

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think people don't appreciate it enough or it wasn't seen

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very much at the time, let us know. We'll put

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it on the list. We'll build it into the show

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some way or somehow. It might not happen in a

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month or two, but we'll try to get it on

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the queue.

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Definitely.

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So this is the time we turn to saying, how

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did the long goodbye happen?

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Matt, this is going to be an interesting story because

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instead of looking at a producer or a director for

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the long goodbye, I wanted to look at the writer

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and to start this story You and I are going

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to have to go back to the 1940s, to that

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director I mentioned just a little bit ago. Because Howard

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Hawks was kind of imagining he's in his office and

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he's reading this hard-boiled crime novel in preparation for a

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movie he's getting ready to make. And the name of

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the novel is called No Good from a Corpse, written

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by an author named Lee Brackett. And he really likes it.

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I mean, this is the kind of writing that he

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wants on his film. So he picks up his phone.

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I imagine it's one of those phones where he hits

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the buzzer and the buzzer rings onto his secretary's desk.

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She hears on the other side of the phone, get

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me that guy Brackett.

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But you know what? There's a problem with that. That

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guy Brackett was a young woman named Lee Brackett. That

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is absolutely right. Hawks hires her and puts her... on

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her very first screenplay. And there's another writer in the room,

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and that writer is none other than William Faulkner. And

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they are adapting Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Do you

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remember who played Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep?

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I do. One of my favorite actors in the whole

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wide world, Humphrey Bogart. What a way to start off.

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your career in Hollywood, you're working for director Howard Hawks,

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you're writing with William Faulkner, and you're writing lines that

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are going to be spoken by Humphrey Bogart. I mean,

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that's like, that's like the meal ticket right there. You

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know what I mean? Yeah, it's all in one. You know,

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here's something I think you're going to like, because just

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a little bit ago, you mentioned a science fiction show

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called Sugar. And we've talked about science fiction before. And

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I know science fiction is one of the genres that

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you particularly like. Lee Brackett didn't just write hard-boiled crime fiction.

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She was better known as a science fiction author. She

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gets this nickname of being the queen of space opera.

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I'm not sure if you've ever read anything by her before.

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You know, I probably have because the name seems very familiar.

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But man, that is so cool.

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That it ties into science fiction like that.

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She's also running around with other people you might recognize.

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Have you ever heard of Robert Heinlein? Yeah, just a

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little bit. How about that guy named Ray Bradbury? Fahrenheit 451? Yeah,

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you know, he's had a couple of books, I think.

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A couple of books. You know, they've sold a few copies.

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Just a few. That's crazy. She marries another science fiction

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writer named Edmund Hamilton. And you're never going to guess

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who the best man was. I have no idea. Would

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it surprise you that They were such good friends with

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Ray Bradbury that Ray Bradbury was the best man in

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their wedding.

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That is crazy. That is a cool detail. I learned

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something today.

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Almost 30 years after the big sleep, she gets Marlowe back.

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She's gotten hired to adapt Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. Now,

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a few things you need to know about The Long Goodbye.

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It was the next to last book that Chandler wrote

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about Philip Marlowe. Mm-hmm. And it was also the longest

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Philip Marlowe adventure written by Chandler. And one last fun fact,

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I recently listened to it on Audible. And I can

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attest that it is long. But you know what made

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that book even longer? What? Is when I finished it

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and I realized at some point I had put it at.

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86 speed. That's funny. Because we've all been talking about

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the Lonesome Dove and putting it at 1.2 speed. Yeah.

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I'm listening to this book. I'm enthralled by it. I'm

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right there in the mystery, but I'm just kind of going,

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oh man, it's just taken so long to finish this book.

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But I downloaded it and said 16 hours. What's going on? Well,

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because of that, I also realized that she's adapting the

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long goodbye, but it's no longer 1946. It's the 1970s.

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She's thinking that you just can't put Humphrey Bogart's suit

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onto anyone and just make another big sleep. So she

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starts to take Raymond Chandler's novel, and she begins to

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reshape it so that it would be more in tune

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with the 70s. There's a lot of plot in that book.

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Some of the payoffs in that book takes a long

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time to get to. So she makes some pretty significant change,

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including one change at the ending where Oh, wait a minute.

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I'm going to hold off on the ending until we

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get after the spoiler warning. You can't talk about that one. Well,

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the project goes through several possible directors before landing with

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someone that we've covered already, Robert Altman. As you already know,

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Altman calls his friend Elliot Gould for MASH. Did you

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know that he wanted Elliot Gould to play McCabe in

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McCabe and Mrs. Miller?

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I think Beatty was a better choice than Elliot Gould,

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but I think Elliot Gould would have been interesting.

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I honestly, I can't see Warren Beatty as Marlo in

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this version of Marlo. Oh, no, for sure. But Elliot Gould,

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I do see. Before we leave this story, I have

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one small ending for Leah Brackett. Remember what I called

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her earlier? Queen of space opera. That's right. A few

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years after the long goodbye, Brackett gets another call from

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another filmmaker. And his name is George Lucas. You've got

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to be kidding. He's had a little bit of success

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at this point, and he's developing a new movie. And

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he wants Lee Brackett to write the screenplay based on

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his story idea. So she takes the job, and she

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completes the first draft early in 1978. But unfortunately, Brackett

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has been seriously ill, and she passes away shortly afterwards

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at the age of 62. This was to be her

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final screenplay, and that movie was The Empire Strikes Back.

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Man.

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That's crazy.

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And it's so sad to hear that she died so young. Clearly,

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she impacted the film world in a very large way

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with her literary capabilities. I'm not quite sure how much

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they used of the original screenplay in the Empire Strikes Back.

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I would bet that the broad strokes of the whole

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film were probably in that original screenplay.

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It is famously said that Lucas was not happy with

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the draft, but Come on, it's the first draft. What

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first draft ever goes to screen, right? And she was dying.

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He completed the script with Lawrence Kasdan, and that was

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a great relationship. We got a lot of good films

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between Lucas Kasdan and Spielberg. But there is something that

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listeners should keep in mind. Again, it was the first draft.

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If you read the script, it's available online. You can

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still see those broad strokes that you were talking about

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are laid down, and it supports the final story that

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would become The Empire Strikes Back. But anyways, that's how

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The Long Goodbye happened. That's pretty cool. Are we ready

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to get into production details?

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I think so, but we first need to step away

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for a quick break. We'll be right back.

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It's a cinematic flashback. Let the show begin. It's a

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cinematic flashback. Let the show begin. It's a.

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Cinematic flashback. Philip Marlowe, just an average guy who happens

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to be a private eye. Elliot Gould is Philip Marlowe.

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Your friend stole my money, and the penalty for that

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is capital punishment. Ow!

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You'll never learn. You're a born loser.

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Elliot Gould in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

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Rated R. I'm through, I'm through this time, and I

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mean it. Welcome back. Before we get to the actors,

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let's take a quick look behind the camera. We've already

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talked about Robert Altman and Lee Brackett, so let's go

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ahead and start with the cinematographer. And this is another

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filmmaker whom we spoke about before. It's Vilmos Zygmunt, who

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shot McCabe and Mrs.

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Miller.

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And we also talked about him earlier this year with,

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I believe it was The Deer Hunter. This movie would

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be his final collaboration with Robert Altman. Well, it definitely

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has a certain look to it in this film. He

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uses some of the same film flashing techniques that he

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did in McCabe and Mrs. Miller to give this film

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that washed out look, similar to what we talked about

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Bruce Serti's last time.

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Yeah, I think that tracks with the film and the material,

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because I think in the film, they're trying to portray L.A.

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as a very shallow and, you know, not morally deep place.

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No.

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And the film and the texture, I call it texture.

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I guess it's that washed out thing. I'm waving my hand.

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No one can see it.

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I can see you.

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It was trying to portray an L.A. that was really

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maybe a shadow of what it once was, you know,

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the relationships are not deep. And they're certainly trying to

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indicate some moral decay. And I think we even see

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that in what is film. Well, think about when we

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did Chinatown, right? Chinatown had this bit of a glow,

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like almost kind of a amber golden glow behind it.

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And it was almost like a memory of a different age.

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In this one, it's very horizontal. Harsh and very, I

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think you were using a term earlier that was very

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flat looking.

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Yeah, yeah, 100%. The movie was edited by Lou Lombardo,

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who's another Altman regular. Now, here comes the interesting part

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about this movie. It cost them about $ 1. 7 million to make.

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And guess what?

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I have no idea how much it made back. I

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would assume it made money.

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It made about $ 959, 000 in its original rentals. So that's

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not so great. And there's possibly some reasons behind this.

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United Artists was not exactly sure how to market this. Now,

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imagine that it is 1973. You are a Philip Marlowe aficionado,

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and you have another Philip Marlowe movie that's coming out.

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The last one that was available was a movie with

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James Garner from 1968 called Marlowe. And so this is

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another Philip Marlowe story, and it's by Robert Altman, the

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guy who did MASH. So you might be coming in

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with some expectations of what Philip Marlowe is. And so

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United Artists, the marketing for this made it look like

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a traditional story, which was not what was there. And

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a lot of people were very disappointed about that. Probably

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most of the people going to see this film had

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read the novels. oh yeah and that's a very different

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expectation if you don't expect that there it's being moved

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into the future it's not a 1940s hard-boiled crime detective

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story it clearly is being moved into 1970s america I

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think that might have been one of the big problems,

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like you said. But I think it's I think we

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need to cast ourselves back. Most people had consumed those

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stories as actual books. Right.

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I'm sure, you know, people like my parents age saw

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the original and the other versions. So I'm not sure

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my parents ever went and saw the one with James Garner,

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although my mom loved James Garner. And by all reports,

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James Garner was one of the nicest guys in Hollywood ever.

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There's a lot of anecdotes of how nice he was.

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which is kind of cool.

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Well, one of the things that UA did is that

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they pulled the marketing and they redid another ad campaign

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for it. They emphasized that it was more of a

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parody and they hired Mad Magazine artist Jack Davis to

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do the poster for it. And Jack Davis, we have

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seen his work before with Kelly's Heroes, The Bad News Bears,

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Woody Allen's Bananas, and it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

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I think I got all the Mads in that one. Yeah.

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Four of them. But here's something that's really interesting. The

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reputation of this movie has completely changed. The only thing

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that Altman needed was time. Because today, it sits at

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93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Ebert eventually added this to his

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great movies. And in 2021, it was selected for preservation

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in the National Film Registry. So whatever it was that

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people didn't see in The Long Goodbye back in 73,

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the film eventually found its audience. Yeah. All right, Matt,

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let's get to the cast. Who do we have?

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Well, first off, as the titular Philip Marlowe, we have

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Elliot Gould. Gould was one of the defining actors of

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the early 1970s Hollywood. He broke through with Bob and Carol,

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Ted and Alice, which earned him an Oscar nomination and

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then became a major star as Trapper John. in Robert

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