The Long Goodbye

"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 conduct his own search when he discovers that mysterious blonde Eileen Wade ( Nina Van Pallandt ), who hired him to find her alcoholic novelist husband Roger ( Sterling Hayden ), lives on the same Malibu street as the absent Lennox and his deceased spouse. As numerous variations on the title song play in unexpected places, Marlowe encounters a shady doctor, a bottle-wielding gangster (director Mark Rydell ), and a guard aping Barbara Stanwyck (among other stars), before heading to Mexico to stumble on the truth once and for all. — Lucia Bozzola