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The Long Goodbye (1973)

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96

Average Rating: 8.2/10
Reviews Counted: 24
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 1

The Long Goodbye is a cool as ice mystery that retains Robert Altman's idiosyncratic sensibilities.

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 0

The Long Goodbye is a cool as ice mystery that retains Robert Altman's idiosyncratic sensibilities.

audience

88

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 7,860

My Rating

Movie Info

"It's OK with me...." Applying his deconstructive eye to the "film noir" tradition, Robert Altman updated Raymond Chandler in his 1973 version of Chandler's novel, The Long Goodbye. Smart-aleck, cat-loving private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is certain that his friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) isn't a wife-killer, even after the cops throw Marlowe in jail for not cooperating with their investigation into Lennox's subsequent disappearance. Once he gets out of jail, Marlowe starts to

R, 1 hr. 52 min.

Drama, Mystery & Suspense, Classics

Raymond Chandler, Leigh Brackett

Sep 17, 2002

United Artists

Cast

All Critics (27) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (25) | Rotten (1) | DVD (8)

It tries to be all genre and no story, and it almost works.

October 23, 2004 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Altman] attempts the impossible and pulls it off.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The look, the unconventional cast and the unconventional story make this a unique film, one of Altman's best.

February 4, 2010 Full Review Source: Laramie Movie Scope | Comment
Laramie Movie Scope

Robert Altman's labyrinthine take on the Raymond Chandler classic is noir unburdened by a straight narrative - it's a triumph of atmosphere and attitude, a swiftly unfolding whodunit punctuated by subversive absurdities and shattering acts of violence.

January 11, 2009 Full Review Source: San Francisco Examiner | Comment
San Francisco Examiner

Everywhere you look, there's something delightfully weird going on ... Altman and company fashion a state of slouching, freeform Zen that no one else has ever really duplicated.

July 11, 2007 Full Review Source: The Stranger (Seattle, WA) | Comment

When he was very near the top of his early peak, [Robert] Altman did the darnedest thing and made a private-eye movie -- or maybe a parody of a private-eye movie; it's hard to say. And he may never have topped it.

June 15, 2007 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

Simultaneously an act of revisionism as well as a parody of then-revitalizing neo-noir.

April 18, 2007 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

The reluctant and satirical mystery is one of the great Los Angeles movies and makes a great compliment to, say, The Big Lebowski.

September 13, 2005 Comment
Zap2it.com

Droll, cunning and magnificently woozy.

June 30, 2005 Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness | Comment
Lessons of Darkness

More a film about friendship and betrayal than murder.

January 9, 2005 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

[A] great classic.

November 15, 2004 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

Fairly good hard boiled detective story

October 23, 2004 Comment

It ends up with mixed results -- Marlowe is drawn as a goofy daydreamer (Altman calls him Rip Van Marlowe) and his story only gets interesting when Sterling Hayden, channeling Hemingway, goes bananas.

September 14, 2003 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | Comment
Filmcritic.com

One of the greatest detective films of all time.

August 21, 2003 Comment
Pasadena Weekly
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Long Goodbye

Altman breaks apart the "noir" genre and Gould takes the character of Phillip Marlowe in a total different direction from the classic Hawks/Bogart version. This is one of my favorites.

October 27, 2011
Graham Jones

Super Reviewer

I promise you have never seen a film quite like Robert Altman's 70s update of the iconic 40s gumshoe detective Phillip Marlowe. Altman crafts a dazzling, dizzying, kaleidoscopic adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel. The film is a very decided departure from the norms of the film noir and Candler universe but it's

May 4, 2011
stevenecarrier
Steven Carrier

Super Reviewer

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Latest News for The Long Goodbye

June 21, 2007:
Frank Miller and Clive Owen to Do Some Old-School Film Noir
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Foreign Titles

  • Der Tod kennt keine Wiederkehr (DE)
  • The Long Goodbye (1973) (UK)
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