The Long Goodbye

 

               Once finishing Mash: the movie, never have I thought I would like another Robert Altman movie and for good reasons I figure you'd find the best movie and you'd never need to watch other movies, almost the way I approached Full Metal Jacket and said to myself "well I don't need to watch another Stanley Kubrick movie". Though the Long Goodbye comes around and I guess now I need to watch all of Altman's movies. 

                Private Detective Phillip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) is asked by his old buddy Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) for a ride to Mexico. He obliges, and when he gets back to Los Angeles is questioned by the Police about the death of Terry's wife. Marlowe remains a suspect until it's reported that Terry's committed suicide in Mexico. Marlowe doesn't buy it but takes a new case from a beautiful blond, Eileen Wade (Nina Van Pallandt), who coincidentally has a past with Terry. 

               I don't know if anyone knows this and granted the Oceans films are close to twenty years old by now but Elliot Gould during my era of movies has always been Ruben Tishkoff who is basically the mentor to George Clooney and Brad's Pitt's character in the Ocean's Films for which sure if you grew up with the Ocean's films that's a big shocker the same with me, though watching some of his earlier work I got to say this guy is awesome as an actor. Moreover, I loved Bogart's portrayal as Marlowe in the Big Sleep and it's a great performance from Bogie but, I got to say, Gould's performance as Marlowe has now become my favorite Marlowe performances and even Altman allowed Gould to improvised and the best part of the whole movie is him improvising the interrogation scene and yet wiping the fingerprint ink all over his face which makes it funny at the same time. I really don't want to spoil anything about this movie because this is now become one of my favorite movies of all time and Long Goodbye is another film in which follows the Dan Harmon storyline cycle but more importantly in what makes this film fantastic is that they modernized the character of Philip Marlowe and you never really get to see that in other great PI detectives being set in today’s world and sadly enough, Hollywood is in so much of a shamble that you don't get any of these films now and I wish they do more bring characters like the Thin Man couple to today’s world for which in all honesty would make a great movie too. Again Tubi, in my opinion, is still reigning supreme in terms of hidden treasures as well as classic films so, if you have Tubi then I would highly recommend watching The Lost Goodbye as well as go on record that Elliot Gould is the best Marlowe of all time.