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

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Are you laughing at me? Yes, you are. You're laughing.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I see you're laughing. I wouldn't laugh if I were you.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not laughing.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Is Terry Lennox alive?
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Are you making.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Did you have a deal with Terry Lennox? Do you
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: think it's funny?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Funny to steal $ 355, 000.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: From Marty Augustine?
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Jack, let me see that knife. Oh, with pleasure, Marty.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Give it to me. Harry. Your father was a moral.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Cut him. What? Cut it. Where?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Cut it off.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Cut it off?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: That's what I said.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Cut it off. Welcome to the Cinematic Flashback Podcast. Get
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: ready to hop into the Wayback Machine as we journey
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: through the wild, bold, and unforgettable films of the 1970s.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Each episode, we break down a classic movie or a
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: forgotten gem, seeing how it performed then and now. and
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: wrapping things up by asking, did it groove through the decades,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: or did it lose its beat? I am your host,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Chuck Bryan, and today we are reviewing Robert Altman's 1973 film,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: The Long Goodbye, starring Elliot Gould, Nina Van Pallant, Sterling Hayden,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: and Mark Rydell. This is our second and final film
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: in our Shades of Noir month. This time, we're going
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: back to one of the most famous private detectives in
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: American fiction, Philip K. And joining me, as always, is
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Matt Sargent. Matt, I feel like I've just seen you
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: two or three times this week. It's good to see
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you again. How are you doing? And more importantly, have
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: you been kicked out of your book club yet? No.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: We had the inaugural meeting last night. It was a blast.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: We had a great time. We're reading Lonesome Dove. It's
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: such a long book that we only had to read
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: to chapter 50, and I only got to chapter 39
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: because I was actually reading it on my tablet.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: So you and I got together recently to go and
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: see a John Wayne film out at the Narrow.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: We did.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: We saw The Searchers. The reason why I wanted to
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: go out and watch The Searchers is because this is
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: a film that has inspired many 70s directors and their
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: films that they have made. One of them being Taxi Driver,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: which is a great film.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Funny that we watched The Searchers because The Searchers purportedly
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: takes place in sort of maybe a little bit before
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Lonesome Dove, the book takes place. And so it was
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: cool that that tied in with the Lonesome Dove and
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: kind of also our investigation into how cinema changed in
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: the 1970s, because that movie was squarely in the before.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: The Searchers was directed by John Ford. And when you
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: think of Hollywood in its golden age, two directors always
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: kind of step out. One's John Ford, the other is
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Howard Hawks. But one of the things that really struck
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: me was how locked down the camera was. So they
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: would put the camera, they would lock it down, they
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: would do the scene, and then they would move the camera,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: film it a different way. And then you compare it to, say,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Robert Altman. The camera's always moving. It's either handheld or
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: on something, and there's lots of zooms, and it's always,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: the camera's in motion. After watching so many 70s movies,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: going back and watching The Searchers, I was really struck
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: by how locked down everything was.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I think there was some level of technology involved in that.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: When they were filming back in the 50s and 40s,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: those cameras were absolutely huge. They were mechanical monsters. And
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: if they did move the camera, it was some very
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: specific ways on tracks and stuff like that. Nothing, anything
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: like handheld.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Okay. So today we're reviewing The Long Goodbye. And this
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: is our third Robert Altman film that you and I
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: have watched. The first one being... McCabe and Mrs. Miller
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: from last year, recommended by a friend of the show,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Jeff Panano. Then we watched MASH, which was really different
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: from the TV show as it had a lot more
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: comedic elements that were slightly subversive, that it was comedy,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: but also there was a statement as well. Oh, 100%.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I think The Long Goodbye has a little bit of
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: that same vibe to it.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that's definitely Robert Altman's signature. It's some
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: level poking fun or satirizing institutions. And the film we're
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: reviewing today is not different. It definitely is taking a
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: very different take on a Philip Marlowe film. It seems
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: to be the sort of cornerstone of Robert Altman's films.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: He's an interesting character.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: It's like he's deconstructing certain myths and at the same
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: time trying to make some kind of commentary along the way.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Well, this is going to be a shocker to you,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: but I actually did some investigation about this whole thing
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: in his career. One of the funny things was he
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: probably got MASH because no other director wanted it. And
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: they didn't expect much to happen with that film.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: They thought they were safe putting Robert Altman at the
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: helm of it. And then what came out was essentially
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: a very, very popular film that seriously took on military institutions.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: And I think they were shocked at that. And that actually...
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I think in some ways enabled him to do certain
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: things in his career.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: As we finish up our discussion on film noir, I
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: thought that it would be a good time to go
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: and watch some other films in this genre. I was
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: going to ask you if you have ever seen the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: movie The Big Lebowski. Oh, for sure. I love that movie.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: It's so funny. I thought the dude reminded me of
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Elliot Gould's character, The dude is just trying to get
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: his carpet cleaned, and then he just kind of floats
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: through this entire film where things get worse and worse
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: and worse. But then finally, at the very end, it
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: all kind of just works out, and the dude abides.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: The dude abides. And in this movie, L.A. Gould's Philip Marlowe,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: sometimes it just feels like he's kind of drifting through.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Things are just rolling off of him. His version of
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: the dude abides is, it's okay with me, man. He
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: says that about 100 times. Yeah. Are there other films
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: that you've seen that you like that are noir-esque?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not that big of a fan of the film noir,
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: but there is a show on TV called Sugar, and
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: it's sci-fi. But the guy is essentially a 1950s detective
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: working in modern day L.A. It's a very cool series.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: And if you like this movie, you will love that series.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Why, Matt? At this point is when we normally do
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: our listener feedback. This week, why don't we just go
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: ahead and turn this around. What do we want to
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: hear from our listeners?
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I want to just call out to our listeners and say, look,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: we like to talk about movies, but we much more
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: like to talk about what you guys want to hear about.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: So, please.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Reach out and give us a shout and say, hey,
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: talk more about the directors or, hey, talk more about
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: the actual filming and locations. I really love to hear
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: about the locations. And we have given locations kind of
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: short shrift, I think. But I really, I love to
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: stay to the end of a movie and watch where
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: they filmed it and what town they filmed it in
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that. It's just, it's something I really
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: love to do. Please, whatever it is that you love
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: about film, that you want us to maybe dig in
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: for you or talk about, or maybe call out that
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: you asked for this. And so we're really going to
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: focus on it. Please do it. We're here to put
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: together something you enjoy listening to. So let us know
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: what you want to hear and we will do our
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: best to include it.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: So just as an example, friend of the show, Jeff
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Johnson asked about the vanishing point, I believe it was.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And I have that one scheduled for season three. I'm
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: writing down film pairings right now. So if there are
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: films that you would like to see, let us know.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: We would love to get that feedback.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: To echo what you're saying, Chuck, one of the sort
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: of cornerstones of this film is to try to find
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: forgotten gems. We do our best to look for them,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: but honestly, we can't watch every film of the 1970s
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: and find one. So if you guys know of a
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: great film that was released in the 70s that you
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: think people don't appreciate it enough or it wasn't seen
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: very much at the time, let us know. We'll put
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: it on the list. We'll build it into the show
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: some way or somehow. It might not happen in a
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: month or two, but we'll try to get it on
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: the queue.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: So this is the time we turn to saying, how
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: did the long goodbye happen?
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Matt, this is going to be an interesting story because
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: instead of looking at a producer or a director for
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: the long goodbye, I wanted to look at the writer
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: and to start this story You and I are going
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: to have to go back to the 1940s, to that
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: director I mentioned just a little bit ago. Because Howard
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Hawks was kind of imagining he's in his office and
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: he's reading this hard-boiled crime novel in preparation for a
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: movie he's getting ready to make. And the name of
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: the novel is called No Good from a Corpse, written
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: by an author named Lee Brackett. And he really likes it.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the kind of writing that he
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: wants on his film. So he picks up his phone.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: I imagine it's one of those phones where he hits
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: the buzzer and the buzzer rings onto his secretary's desk.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: She hears on the other side of the phone, get
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: me that guy Brackett.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: But you know what? There's a problem with that. That
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: guy Brackett was a young woman named Lee Brackett. That
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: is absolutely right. Hawks hires her and puts her... on
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: her very first screenplay. And there's another writer in the room,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: and that writer is none other than William Faulkner. And
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: they are adapting Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Do you
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: remember who played Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I do. One of my favorite actors in the whole
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: wide world, Humphrey Bogart. What a way to start off.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: your career in Hollywood, you're working for director Howard Hawks,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: you're writing with William Faulkner, and you're writing lines that
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: are going to be spoken by Humphrey Bogart. I mean,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: that's like, that's like the meal ticket right there. You
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? Yeah, it's all in one. You know,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: here's something I think you're going to like, because just
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: a little bit ago, you mentioned a science fiction show
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: called Sugar. And we've talked about science fiction before. And
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: I know science fiction is one of the genres that
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: you particularly like. Lee Brackett didn't just write hard-boiled crime fiction.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: She was better known as a science fiction author. She
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: gets this nickname of being the queen of space opera.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you've ever read anything by her before.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: You know, I probably have because the name seems very familiar.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: But man, that is so cool.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: That it ties into science fiction like that.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: She's also running around with other people you might recognize.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Have you ever heard of Robert Heinlein? Yeah, just a
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: little bit. How about that guy named Ray Bradbury? Fahrenheit 451? Yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: you know, he's had a couple of books, I think.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: A couple of books. You know, they've sold a few copies.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Just a few. That's crazy. She marries another science fiction
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: writer named Edmund Hamilton. And you're never going to guess
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: who the best man was. I have no idea. Would
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: it surprise you that They were such good friends with
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Ray Bradbury that Ray Bradbury was the best man in
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: their wedding.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: That is crazy. That is a cool detail. I learned
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: something today.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Almost 30 years after the big sleep, she gets Marlowe back.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: She's gotten hired to adapt Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. Now,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a few things you need to know about The Long Goodbye.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: It was the next to last book that Chandler wrote
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: about Philip Marlowe. Mm-hmm. And it was also the longest
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Philip Marlowe adventure written by Chandler. And one last fun fact,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I recently listened to it on Audible. And I can
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: attest that it is long. But you know what made
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: that book even longer? What? Is when I finished it
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: and I realized at some point I had put it at.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: 86 speed. That's funny. Because we've all been talking about
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: the Lonesome Dove and putting it at 1.2 speed. Yeah.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: I'm listening to this book. I'm enthralled by it. I'm
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: right there in the mystery, but I'm just kind of going,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: oh man, it's just taken so long to finish this book.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: But I downloaded it and said 16 hours. What's going on? Well,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: because of that, I also realized that she's adapting the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: long goodbye, but it's no longer 1946. It's the 1970s.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: She's thinking that you just can't put Humphrey Bogart's suit
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: onto anyone and just make another big sleep. So she
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: starts to take Raymond Chandler's novel, and she begins to
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: reshape it so that it would be more in tune
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: with the 70s. There's a lot of plot in that book.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Some of the payoffs in that book takes a long
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: time to get to. So she makes some pretty significant change,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: including one change at the ending where Oh, wait a minute.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to hold off on the ending until we
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: get after the spoiler warning. You can't talk about that one. Well,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the project goes through several possible directors before landing with
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: someone that we've covered already, Robert Altman. As you already know,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Altman calls his friend Elliot Gould for MASH. Did you
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: know that he wanted Elliot Gould to play McCabe in
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: McCabe and Mrs. Miller?
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I think Beatty was a better choice than Elliot Gould,
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: but I think Elliot Gould would have been interesting.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I honestly, I can't see Warren Beatty as Marlo in
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: this version of Marlo. Oh, no, for sure. But Elliot Gould,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I do see. Before we leave this story, I have
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: one small ending for Leah Brackett. Remember what I called
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: her earlier? Queen of space opera. That's right. A few
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: years after the long goodbye, Brackett gets another call from
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: another filmmaker. And his name is George Lucas. You've got
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: to be kidding. He's had a little bit of success
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: at this point, and he's developing a new movie. And
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: he wants Lee Brackett to write the screenplay based on
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: his story idea. So she takes the job, and she
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: completes the first draft early in 1978. But unfortunately, Brackett
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: has been seriously ill, and she passes away shortly afterwards
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: at the age of 62. This was to be her
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: final screenplay, and that movie was The Empire Strikes Back.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: And it's so sad to hear that she died so young. Clearly,
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: she impacted the film world in a very large way
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: with her literary capabilities. I'm not quite sure how much
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: they used of the original screenplay in the Empire Strikes Back.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: I would bet that the broad strokes of the whole
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: film were probably in that original screenplay.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: It is famously said that Lucas was not happy with
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the draft, but Come on, it's the first draft. What
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: first draft ever goes to screen, right? And she was dying.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: He completed the script with Lawrence Kasdan, and that was
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: a great relationship. We got a lot of good films
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: between Lucas Kasdan and Spielberg. But there is something that
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: listeners should keep in mind. Again, it was the first draft.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: If you read the script, it's available online. You can
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: still see those broad strokes that you were talking about
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: are laid down, and it supports the final story that
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: would become The Empire Strikes Back. But anyways, that's how
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: The Long Goodbye happened. That's pretty cool. Are we ready
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: to get into production details?
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I think so, but we first need to step away
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: for a quick break. We'll be right back.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: It's a cinematic flashback. Let the show begin. It's a
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: cinematic flashback. Let the show begin. It's a.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Cinematic flashback. Philip Marlowe, just an average guy who happens
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: to be a private eye. Elliot Gould is Philip Marlowe.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Your friend stole my money, and the penalty for that
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: is capital punishment. Ow!
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: You'll never learn. You're a born loser.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Elliot Gould in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Rated R. I'm through, I'm through this time, and I
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: mean it. Welcome back. Before we get to the actors,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: let's take a quick look behind the camera. We've already
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: talked about Robert Altman and Lee Brackett, so let's go
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: ahead and start with the cinematographer. And this is another
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: filmmaker whom we spoke about before. It's Vilmos Zygmunt, who
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: shot McCabe and Mrs.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Miller.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: And we also talked about him earlier this year with,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I believe it was The Deer Hunter. This movie would
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: be his final collaboration with Robert Altman. Well, it definitely
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: has a certain look to it in this film. He
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: uses some of the same film flashing techniques that he
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: did in McCabe and Mrs. Miller to give this film
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: that washed out look, similar to what we talked about
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Bruce Serti's last time.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that tracks with the film and the material,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: because I think in the film, they're trying to portray L.A.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: as a very shallow and, you know, not morally deep place.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: No.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: And the film and the texture, I call it texture.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: I guess it's that washed out thing. I'm waving my hand.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: No one can see it.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I can see you.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: It was trying to portray an L.A. that was really
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: maybe a shadow of what it once was, you know,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: the relationships are not deep. And they're certainly trying to
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: indicate some moral decay. And I think we even see
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: that in what is film. Well, think about when we
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: did Chinatown, right? Chinatown had this bit of a glow,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: like almost kind of a amber golden glow behind it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: And it was almost like a memory of a different age.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: In this one, it's very horizontal. Harsh and very, I
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: think you were using a term earlier that was very
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: flat looking.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, 100%. The movie was edited by Lou Lombardo,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: who's another Altman regular. Now, here comes the interesting part
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: about this movie. It cost them about $ 1. 7 million to make.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: And guess what?
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: I have no idea how much it made back. I
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: would assume it made money.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: It made about $ 959, 000 in its original rentals. So that's
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: not so great. And there's possibly some reasons behind this.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: United Artists was not exactly sure how to market this. Now,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: imagine that it is 1973. You are a Philip Marlowe aficionado,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: and you have another Philip Marlowe movie that's coming out.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: The last one that was available was a movie with
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: James Garner from 1968 called Marlowe. And so this is
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: another Philip Marlowe story, and it's by Robert Altman, the
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: guy who did MASH. So you might be coming in
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: with some expectations of what Philip Marlowe is. And so
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: United Artists, the marketing for this made it look like
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: a traditional story, which was not what was there. And
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of people were very disappointed about that. Probably
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: most of the people going to see this film had
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: read the novels. oh yeah and that's a very different
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: expectation if you don't expect that there it's being moved
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: into the future it's not a 1940s hard-boiled crime detective
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: story it clearly is being moved into 1970s america I
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: think that might have been one of the big problems,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: like you said. But I think it's I think we
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: need to cast ourselves back. Most people had consumed those
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: stories as actual books. Right.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: I'm sure, you know, people like my parents age saw
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: the original and the other versions. So I'm not sure
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: my parents ever went and saw the one with James Garner,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: although my mom loved James Garner. And by all reports,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: James Garner was one of the nicest guys in Hollywood ever.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of anecdotes of how nice he was.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: which is kind of cool.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that UA did is that
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: they pulled the marketing and they redid another ad campaign
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: for it. They emphasized that it was more of a
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: parody and they hired Mad Magazine artist Jack Davis to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: do the poster for it. And Jack Davis, we have
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: seen his work before with Kelly's Heroes, The Bad News Bears,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Woody Allen's Bananas, and it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I think I got all the Mads in that one. Yeah.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Four of them. But here's something that's really interesting. The
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: reputation of this movie has completely changed. The only thing
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: that Altman needed was time. Because today, it sits at
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Ebert eventually added this to his
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: great movies. And in 2021, it was selected for preservation
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: in the National Film Registry. So whatever it was that
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: people didn't see in The Long Goodbye back in 73,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: the film eventually found its audience. Yeah. All right, Matt,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: let's get to the cast. Who do we have?
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Well, first off, as the titular Philip Marlowe, we have
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Elliot Gould. Gould was one of the defining actors of
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: the early 1970s Hollywood. He broke through with Bob and Carol,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Ted and Alice, which earned him an Oscar nomination and
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: then became a major star as Trapper John. in Robert
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Altman's M.A.S.H. Younger audiences probably know him as Ross and
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Monica's dad on Friends or as Ruben Tishkoff in the
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Ocean's Eleven movies.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: He was in those. Yeah.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Fun fact, at the height of his fame in 1970,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Gould made the cover of Time magazine, which called him
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: a star for an uptight age.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: That's hilarious. You know, I'll be honest with you, Elliot Gould,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I like him as an actor. I've never been a
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: huge fan. He's not one of my favorite, favorite actors.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know why, but he just doesn't sort of
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: do it for me. Can I give you an idea
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: that my friend Jay suggested? Sure. Because I'm the same way.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Whenever you watch an actor, say, like Harrison Ford, whether
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: he's Han Solo or whether he's Indiana Jones... At some point,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: you forget that you're watching Harrison Ford and that now
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: you're seeing that character. And you can say that about
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of actors. At some point, you stop seeing
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the actor and you just see the character. With Elliot Gould,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I never lose the fact that I'm watching Elliot Gould. Yeah.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm trying to say that. I hope I'm saying
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: that nicely.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: I think you're spot on because I think that's exactly
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: the problem I have.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: The next actor is Jim Bolton, who played Terry Lennox,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: who is the character that is Marlo's friend. He sets
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: everything into motion. But Bolton wasn't really an actor. He
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: was a major league pitcher. He played for the New
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: York Yankees. He won 21 games in 1963, and he
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: appeared in two World Series. But he is best known
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: for writing a book called Ball Four. which was very
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: controversial in 1970s because it was a tell all about
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: life behind the scenes in professional baseball. Go figure who
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: would have known, right? It's probably the same in all sports,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: but here's a fun fact. Bowdoin later helped to bring
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: big league chew to market. Now, if you don't know
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: what big league chew is, Matt, it is shredded bubble
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: gum that is designed and packaged to look like chewing
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: tobacco so that boys out in the field can have
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: a pack a big league chew in their pocket when
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: they're out on the baseball field and they can put
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: a pitch of that gum in their jaw and look
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: like they're in the big leagues.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: I think it went the same way as canned cigarettes,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: which were outlawed because they're basically marketing tobacco in later
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: life to children. I remember my friends who played baseball
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: would always have it. It was literally bubble gum in
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: long shreds in a packet that looked like Chewing tobacco.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Playing Eileen Wade as Nina Van Pallant. Before becoming an actress,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Van Pallant performed with her husband as the Danish singing
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: duo Nina and Frederick. Fun fact here. James Bond fans,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: you might recognize her voice because she sang the song
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown in the
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And Matt, that is
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: a very bizarre song. It sounds bizarre. It is a
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: bizarre song. However, I am going to add this to
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: my Christmas playlist on Spotify this year, but her life
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: even gets stranger. This may not be something that a
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: lot of listeners will relate to, but I have to
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: ask you if you remember anything about billionaire Howard Hughes. Yeah, sure.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: He was a famous recluse, germaphobe, designer of airplanes, and
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: basically an entire iconoclast of how planes were designed. I mean,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: the guy was absolutely brilliant, but like many brilliant people,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I think, ended up with serious mental problems.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: You named him exactly right. He was such a recluse
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: that people really wanted to know about him. It was
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: a surprise when Clifford Irving, who was an author, got
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: exclusive access to him, and he wrote Howard Hughes's biography.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: There's a problem about that, because at the time... Clifford
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Irving was having an affair with Nina. And later, Nina
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: would testify that there's no way that he could have
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: had the dates that they had recorded because Clifford was
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: actually with her. And so there was an entire scandal.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: I think Clifford Irving ended up getting in some legal
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: trouble because he actually made the whole thing up.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Howard Hughes was famous for suing people and journalists for
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: to to keep his privacy. So I'm sure he went
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: after him with both barrels.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Her testimony helped exposed it. And it was one of
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: the biggest publishing hoaxes of the era. Now we turn
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: to Sterling Hayden, who plays Roger Wade, the husband of
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Eileen Wade, who we just talked about. He's a brilliant
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: novelist who clearly is sinking into the terrible disease of alcoholism.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: He has a troubled marriage, and he becomes tangled up
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: in Marlowe's investigation. Sterling Hayden was a towering presence in
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: classic Hollywood, best known for films like The Killing, Dr. Strangelove,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: and The Asphalt Jungle. And of course, he's Captain McCluskey
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: in The Godfather. Captain McCluskey, if I remember, he was
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: the police officer that was shot by Pacino, and then
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Pacino shot Al Lethierry.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: So we've had both Al Lethierry this season, and now
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: we have Sterling Hayden, and both of them shot by
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Al Pacino, who was in Scarecrow. Right, right, right, right. Trifecta.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: There you go. Six degrees, right? Yep.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Everybody will instantly recognize this guy when he comes on screen.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: He really has a unique face, and he's a big guy.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Big, big, big guy.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Fun fact, during World War II, Hayden joined the Marines...
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: legally changed his name to John Hamilton and served with
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: the OSS behind enemy lines. He was awarded the Silver
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Star for his work with the resistance fighters in Yugoslavia.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Did he remind you at all of Hemingway? I think
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: that's what he was trying to go for.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, good. That wasn't just me. The other thing, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I read this, he was either stoned or inebriated in
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: order to get into character. So that wasn't in the hack. Yeah.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: You know, that's method acting. I guess that could have happened.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I think the most interesting thing about Sterling Hayden in
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: this particular film was that Dan Blocker was supposed to
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: play this role.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Dan Blocker had died. In fact, if you watch
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: the film, there is a in memoriam for Dan Blocker.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: He was cast as this character. So Dan Blocker, we
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: all know from... bonanza little joe yeah and here's another
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: tie-in robert altman directed some of the bonanza episodes no
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: way yeah.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I'm i'm trying to imagine i i almost.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah i'm i will i'll tell you what you're thinking
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: hayden was perfect in this role i think so too
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: you had to have a certain amount of pity and
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: dislike for this character yeah which sterling hayden was able
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: to elicit.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Sure Last of the big actors that I wanted to
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: point out was Mark Rydell, who plays Marty Augustine, the
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: gangster who is looking for the $ 350. $ 350, 000 Terry Lennox
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: supposedly stole from him. Rydell is actually better known as
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: a director. His films include The Cowboys with John Wayne,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: The Rose with Bette Midler, and a film we've talked
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: about a couple of times on Golden Pond with The Fondas.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: on Golden Pond, earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Rydell was actually really good in this role.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: He was very unpredictable. When you watch the film, you'll
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: be like, should I be scared of this guy? And then, yeah, definitely.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: At one point, yes. Yeah. One of the things that's
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: interesting about Rydell, as a director, he did not like
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: the way that Augustine was written. He rewrote the lines.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: with Altman's approval, of course. I think that those scenes
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: play off really well. You're right, you're not sure. Am
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I supposed to take him seriously? Is he funny? What's
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: going on here?
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: For a semi-small part in the movie, he plays a
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: big role, and he did a great job.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Well, before we leave casting, I wanted to
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: mention a couple of uncredited cameos. The first was David Carradine.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: He's sharing a jail cell With Elliot Gould. Gould names
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: him Socrates. Yeah. The next actor is probably not going
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: to be super obvious. At the party is Carl Gottlieb.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Carl Gottlieb worked with Altman on M.A.S.H. He played the anesthetologist.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: But two years later, he co-writes Jaws, and he also
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: plays the newspaper editor Harry Meadows. Yeah. That's funny. And
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: there's one more guy. Did you see him?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Arnold Schwarzenegger. He plays one of the heavies on Marty
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Augustine gang. And he's sporting a 70s mustache too, right?
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: A porn stache. That was funny.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: His 70s physique is unmistakable. Yeah. Iconic. All right, Matt,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: before we get into the movie itself, let's make our
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: usual stop at Mom and Pop's video store. We've found
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: the long goodbye on the shelf. Let's flip it over
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: and read the back of the box. Matt, what does
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: it say? Elliot Gould gives one of his best performances
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: as a quirky, mischievous Philip Marlowe in the fascinating and
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: original send-up of Raymond Chandler's classic detective story, from maverick
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: filmmaker Robert Altman. The Long Goodbye is a gloriously inspired
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: subversion of the film noir genre with the sun-baked Sodom
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: of the 1970s Hollywood as its backdrop. Private Eye Philip
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Marlowe faces the most bizarre cases of his life when
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: a friend's apparent suicide turns into a double murder involving
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: a sexy blonde, a disturbed gangster, and a suitcase.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Full of drug money. But as Marlowe stumbles toward the truth,
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: he soon finds himself lost in a maze of sex
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: and deceit, only to discover that in L.A., if love
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: is dangerous, friendship is murder.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Let's rent this movie. Yes.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: We've got a lot to say about this one, but
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: first we need to step away for a quick break.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: Stick around. We'll be right back with our thoughts on
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: The Long Goodbye.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Ed's been working overtime practicing his serve. He needs a
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: deodorant that works overtime.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: My boss is working overtime on a big presentation. He
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: needs a deodorant that works overtime.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Only Old Spice Dick deodorant gives you both 24-hour protection
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: from odor plus that famous Old Spice scent.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: My son's been.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Working overtime practicing his saves.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Good thing my Old Spice Stick works overtime, too. Old
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Spice Stick, the deodorant that works overtime.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: It's a cinematic flashback. Let the show begin. Eileen, are
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: you lying about Roger?
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Are you lying about Roger? Your crazy Looney Tunes husband
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: could have killed Sylvia Lennox. Could have killed Sylvia Lennox. Look,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: he's not gonna be walking out of there. I'm sorry.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I thought the guy was okay. I never saw one
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: like him before. Now, the police say that Terry Lennox
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: killed his wife.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Now you tell me what really happened. What happened? Now look.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Terry Lennox is dead.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: I want to know who killed him because that guy
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: is dead, right? Are you going to tell me what
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: really happened now?
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: He killed Sylvia.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: You said you think he killed Sylvia Lennox?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: All right, everybody.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: From here on out, we're getting into our thoughts on
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: The Long Goodbye, and there will definitely be spoilers. If
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: you haven't seen it yet, it's available to rent at
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: all the usual locations. So this is your chance to
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: hit pause and go watch it and then come back.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: And if you're a physical media collector, Kino Lorber has
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: a great Blu-ray with plenty of extras and behind-the-scenes material
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: well worth the purchase. Matt, we started talking about Elliot Gould.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: What do you make of this version of Philip Marlowe?
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: It's hard to describe in some ways because I think
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: what most people are used to for Philip Marlowe is
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: someone who's fairly well put together, kind of knows a
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: lot about what's going on around him. and is constantly
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: trying to think steps ahead. This version of Philip Marlowe
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: is basically just in with the flow. He does have
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: some instincts to go talk to the right people, to
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: try to follow up. He literally finds clues, but once
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: he finds the clues and then other things happen, he's
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: just sort of taken on a ride.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Just two years later, a movie called Farewell, My Lovely,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: starring Robert Mitchum, would come out. At this time, he's
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: an older Philip Marlowe, but it's still taking place in
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: the time period. And it has all of the hallmarks
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: of this classic story. It has narration that's always going on.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: You know, if you ever have seen those movies where
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: you hear the detective is narrating what's going on. And
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: in this case, Gould's version, he's very frumpy. Yeah. Disheveled.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Mumbles.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Mumbles a lot. And that may be a little on
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: par with Robert Altman, because his dialogue is sometimes not
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: always the clearest. But there are times when Marlowe is
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: very much being Philip Marlowe. And I think that's where
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: you see the strength of Lee Brackett knowing who Philip
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Marlowe is. And I think the parts that are maybe
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: not as common with the character may be where Altman
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: was stepping in. and putting his fingerprints on it.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: As we've discussed with Robert Altman, he was an iconoclast.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: He's trying to make something that's maybe turning genres on
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: in their head. And you can see where he comes
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: in and is subverting that for his grander purpose. And
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: that is maybe one of the problems I have.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: With Robert Altman.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Everybody's like, oh, he's the greatest. I'm like, he didn't
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: deliver to the studios what they asked for. And so
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: then he's not able to get the access to the
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: budgets and films that maybe were a little more in
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: tune with his talent. But it's his own problem. He
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: basically takes their money, doesn't make what they want. They
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: get mad. And in the case of this movie, they
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: don't make their money back, which is crazy. You're talking
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: about a bankable star, Elliot Gould, who would bring in
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: tons of money. But probably what happened is people went
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: to the first nights of this film, Then told all
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: their friends, it's not like any Philip Marlowe film you've
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: ever seen.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: I'd skip it. And they did. I think this is
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: like one of the risks that happens in early 70s.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Studios were really willing to give up. 1.9 million is
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: still cheap. It wasn't nothing back then. Well, it was
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: still cheaper than the 15 or 16 million that they
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: had spent, say, on Camelot. Yeah. That one flopped. I mean,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: I would rather 1.9 flop versus 14, 15 million dollar flop. Right.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: It's one of the strengths of early 70s films, but
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: it's also one of the greatest risks. So we look
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: back on 70s cinema and we always think everything they
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: did was great. Well, this movie is great, but it's
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: not great at the time. It was something people found
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: later looking back on what Altman was doing.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: But at the time, people didn't know that. People just
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: went to the movies for entertainment. And I guarantee you
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: that people went to the movies for entertainment on this
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: movie and went, what was that? And I'll be honest
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: with you, all the marketing in the world cannot get
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: over your best friend telling you, don't go see it.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a terrible movie, but it wasn't what people expected.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: And people get angry. This is the way that I
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: think of it. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi. he
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: deconstructed who Luke Skywalker was. You took a well-known, well-established character,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: and you completely took some of the main defining characteristics
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: that made him the hero of of the 70s or
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: the hero of the 40s. And you completely threw that out.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: If I would have seen this movie back in 70s
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: and I was a fan of Philip Marlowe, I think
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I would have reacted very negatively. Yeah. Yeah, I agree
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: with that. What exactly does a movie owe? the book
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: it's adapting. For example, you can argue that the movie
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Jaws is also equally as impactful as the book was
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: when it came out. What do you think?
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: I 100% agree. And I think what's beholden on someone
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: adapting a book into a film is to get rid
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: of what doesn't matter and keep what matters and possibly
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: adjust some things to get a net same effect without
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: having to spend 75 pages on it. I mean, they
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: have a limited time, right? This is not a 10-part miniseries.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: It's a film.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: You've got to cut it down. And I think at
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Jaws it was very effective. They kept all of the stuff.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: The novel made it interesting and left off affairs and
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: the nonsense of the characters that were happening that did
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: not matter to the story.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: It was a very... adept adjustment. And I think we're
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: also going to talk about Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: on The Shining. What do you think about that?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: This is an example where I think the gulf between
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: movie and book is greater. And I think it's also
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: an example of where the author wasn't 100% on board
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: with what the movie did. I believe both the movie
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: and the book are so far apart that they actually
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: stand apart. as separate works of art. Yeah. And I
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: feel the same about Jaws, but those I felt like
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: were closer. Peter Benchley even has a small cameo in Jaws.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I don't think Stephen King was ever quite happy with
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: what Kubrick did, but Kubrick made something that it had
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of the elements, but it also elevated it
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: in a different way. I agree completely.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: The difference between Jaws and The Shining to me is
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: they're really, like you said, they almost stand apart. Whereas
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: I think Jaws is the differential equation of the book, right? And,
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of times when you've read the
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: book and you watch the movie, you're like, wow, they
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: left this out. They left that out. Why did they
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: leave this out? I didn't think that at all when
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: I watched Jaws. I just said they went from part
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: to part. And I was like, great. They didn't cover
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: just stupid love affairs and nonsense that means nothing.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: I think. What a movie owes to the source material
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: is an adaptation that is still faithful in character, but
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: it doesn't have to do it beat by beat. Right.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: I think there's a difference between an adaptation and a,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: you'd almost call it inspired by.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. That would have been
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: a great way. That's funny. So when Robert Altman was
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: making this film, the concept that sold him the most
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: was how he wanted to show that Philip Marlowe was
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: like a Rip Van Winkle kind of character who had
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: fallen asleep in one age and woke up in today's world.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: So in the today being the 1970s. So what does
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: an old fashioned hero like Marlowe do now? when he's
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: dropped into the moral landscape of the 70s. What do
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: you see that like? Well, I think this actually was
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: addressed in a lot of people. And even when they
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: were filming the movie, I think they talked about calling him,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: was it Marlo Van Winkle? Yeah, Rip Van Marlo or
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: something like that.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: Rip Van Marlo or whatever, with a nod towards exactly
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: what that was. And I think this part of the
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: movie is interesting because it's definitely dropping this... character that
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: has a much more black and white moral framework than
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: the 1970s had at the time. And in the film,
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: we see his neighbor, there's a bunch of girls who
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: are yoga instructors who like to go around topless most
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: of the time, and lots of other sort of innuendos
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: about moral decay and loyalty and things like that. And
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: we see the juxtaposition with that, with Marlowe steadfastly believing
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: his friend and considering... the chance of him doing this
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: horrible act as being zero.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I felt like he had this quality of loyalty to
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: his friend Terry Lennox. Right. What did you think of
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: the song in this movie? Did you notice it? Oh, yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, you hear it in every way, shape, or form.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Even the Mexican band down in Mexico is playing it,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: which is hilarious.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: So it comes through all the time. When Altman hired
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: John Williams. Right.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: He hires him and he says, I want you to
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: write one song, but I want you to arrange it
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: about a billion different ways. Right. At the very beginning,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: you see Terry Lennox driving in his car. You hear
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: it playing on the radio. You hear it. playing in
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: the grocery store, and then you hear it playing on sitar,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: and then you hear it playing in the mariachi band,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: like you said, or he rings a doorbell, and the
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: doorbell song is the first few notes from the song.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's speaking more towards Robert Altman, not to
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: reuse the word deconstructing too many times, but it's him
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: kind of deconstructing those lush scores John Williams would be
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: reintroducing with Jaws and Star Wars in just a couple
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: of years. When I was watching the film with my wife,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: She picked up immediately a voice singing the song at
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: the beginning over the credits. That voice was Jack Sheldon.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: He sang a lot of the songs in Schoolhouse Rock,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: like Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function, as well as I'm
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Just a Bill.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: I'm just a bill, simply a bill, waiting here on
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Capitol Hill, or whatever.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: She pulled it up. I had to look it up,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: and yeah, sure enough, it was him. That was funny.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: That's so funny that she recognized that voice. Now, in
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: the book, what's drastically different is the third act. It
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: was the ending that was written in the script that
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: convinced Robert Altman that, yes, I want to do this,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: but we cannot change the ending. Interesting. Did the ending
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: work for you?
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: I think it did, actually. It was a real left
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: turn thing. in terms of what had happened in the
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: entire movie about Marlo's loyalty to Terry Lennox. But in
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: some ways, it's kind of like the only thing that
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: was going to right the balance on the scales. Although.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: is very unlike the character to commit a crime. Oh, yeah.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: The whole movie, he basically is cruising along, basically above board.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Here's my PI license. This is what I'm doing. Yeah.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: At any point during the thing, he wasn't telling people
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: lies and stories to get what he wanted. He's like,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: I'm looking for this person and this and that. And,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: you know, so to me, that was a real Weird turn,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: but when you think about how this guy from the
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: 1940s is stuck in this hedonistic 1970s society and then
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: being so drastically played by this friend who he had
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: even gone to jail protecting, to me it wasn't surprising
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: how it ended, but it was, to me, it was
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: very unusual, I guess, so. I liked it. I mean,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: I wasn't against it, but it seemed when you think
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: about the rest of the whole character, it's definitely out
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: of character.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: It's definitely out of character for Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. Yes, 100%.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Chandler would never have written this.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: No.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: It is in character of Robert Altman. Yeah. Only thing
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: he still has is his loyalty. He goes to jail
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: for Terry. And then he finds out at the end
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: that Terry has used him and Marlo ends the relationship.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: It's the long goodbye. I think that's all I'm going
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: to say about that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, I think we've gotten about as close
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: as we're going to get to figuring out the long goodbye.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: We need to take one final break. And then when
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: we come back, we'll give our final thoughts and find
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: out whether this movie grooves to the decades or if
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: it lost its beat. We'll be right back. All right, Matt,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: now comes the question that really matters. Did the long
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: goodbye groove through the decades or did it lose its beat?
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Where did this one land for you?
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: I don't have a ton to say about this. Like
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: I said, Elliot Gould is not my favorite actor in
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: the world. I do enjoy some of the roles he's played.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: In this particular role, he was pushed along like a
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: leaf on a stream. He didn't seem like he had
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of self-actualization really things happen to him versus
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: he doing things and and to me that's just not
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: that interesting in some points he you know he acts
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: like a real detective he certainly gets to the bottom
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: of a lot of stuff pretty quick and he does
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: have some insights here and there but he also has
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: huge blind spots that cause the movie so to me
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: it was an interesting movie to watch and i enjoyed
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: it on a historical perspective. But we know that it
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: didn't really groove back in the decades when it was
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: released because of the numbers it had. I don't think
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: it was that great. I think it's seen some research
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: in film. People who enjoy film and the historical part
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: of how films were made and the whole Robert Altman
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: arc is very interesting. And for those parts, it's a
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: good film to see for that. But no, I think
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: your time is spent on some better films. So I'm
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: going to say it doesn't groove for me now. But
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: it wasn't a total disappointment. Like, I never thought about
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: turning it off. Let's put it that way, okay? I'm
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: not panning it, but I'm also saying there are other
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: films we've recommended that you would be better off seeing.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: That's my personal take. It may not jibe with you.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: But what did you think, Chuck? You know, I'm just
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: going to start off by saying I do like this film.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: After watching The Long Goodbye, I went off and I
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: watched Marlowe with James Garner and Farewell, My Lovely with
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Robert Mitchum. And I thought both of those films were great. Good,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: but neither of them did anything new with Philip Marlowe.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: And that's what I appreciated about The Long Goodbye. Brackett
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: didn't write a straightforward adaptation of Chandler's novel. She freed
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Marlowe from those constraints, and that gave Altman the opportunity
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: to just retell this detective story and make it relevant
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: to the 1970s. But I'll admit, there are times when
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: I couldn't tell how seriously the movie wanted me to
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: take it. Sometimes it felt like a comedy, but I
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: think that's part of what makes it interesting. And I
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: have to say that I really enjoyed some of the
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: performances in this film, especially Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: and Mark Rydell as Marty Augustine. So for me, it grooves.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: And I actually think it's grooving better today than probably
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: it did in 73 based on those numbers. So I
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: would recommend it. So that's my thoughts. Anything else on
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: the long goodbye before we say goodbye to it?
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: No, but I would just echo that I agree with you.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: I think the performance of Sterling Hayden, which I spoke
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: of before, I thought was really, really good. And I
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: love Mark Rydell as Marty Augustine. He really was good.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was terrible to hate. And I do
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: agree with what you say. I think it grooves more
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: than it did in 1973. I just think there's far
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: better films out there.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: But I agree. I absolutely think people should listen to you, Chuck,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: over me. I'm just the loyal sidekick. Well, listen, if
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: you're going to the video store and you only have
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: money for one movie, you have Night Moves or you
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: have The Long Goodbye. Which one are you renting? I
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: think Night Moves. I think Night Moves, yeah. I think
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Night Moves was a more interesting film to me and
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: a little more truer to kind of the genre. Yeah, exactly.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: But I would definitely say Night Moves. It does a
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: good job of deconstructing what the film noir hero is,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: but still keep a good story that goes along and
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: doesn't fall into necessarily all of the tropes of earlier genres,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: like with the narration and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. I would
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: probably pull Night Moves off the shelf as well. All right.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: I think that puts a bow on Shades of Noir.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: And now we are moving into that spooky season of
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: the year. The 1970s gave us some great horror films,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: and in October, we're looking at two very different examples
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: of what that decade had to offer. First up, we're
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: going to watch Dario Argento's Suspiria from 1977, and then
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: we'll wrap up the month with George Romero's Dawn of
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: the Dead from 1978. So join us again in two
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: weeks as we.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Hop into the Wayback Machine for the Goblin Connection. We
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: want to thank you for taking the time to tune in.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: If you've seen The Long Goodbye, we'd love to hear
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: what you think. Reach out to us on Facebook or
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: leave us a message over at cinematicflashback.com. Don't forget to
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you're
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: enjoying the podcast, we really appreciate a rating and a review.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: In fact, your review might just get read on the air.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: And tell your friends and family about what we still
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: proudly believe is the best podcast dedicated exclusively to 1970s cinema.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Join us next time as we climb back into the
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Wayback Machine and head once again to the 1970s for
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: another cinematic adventure. Until then, thanks for listening.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Barbara Stanwyck. I've been working on Barbara Stanwyck.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: I'll show you. All right.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: I don't understand.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: I don't understand it at all.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: I've never understood it, Walter.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: I just don't understand why I don't understand it.