Review of The Long Goodbye

Here are the top five private eye films in my opinion. The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Chinatown, Harper and The Long Goodbye. Two of them are based on Raymond Chandler novels. If you are a fan of the books then you might not appreciate this film. Instead of the tough, wisecracking P.I. we get a bewildered, chainsmoking detective who never seems to understand what is going on. The characterization is great. Robert Mitchum had just played Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely as a period piece, he was good, but seemed too tired. Gould is perfect. The film is more about him being an outsider in a modern world. He drives an old car, and his values seem out of step in the 1970's. Marlowe is lost in the LA of the seventies among hippies and all night supermarkets. He is a lonely man and the film captures that perfectly. Towards the end of the film we see that Gould is just as tough as Bogart, Mitchum and all of the other famous detectives. This is a great film. Check it out.