When I first saw this film back in the 70's, I thought it was just too quirky like many movies made at the time. However, 40 years later, I can appreciate it more and I'm glad I gave it another look.
Private eye Philip Marlow lives in Los Angeles with his cat. When a friend asks to be driven to Mexico, it leads into a story of suicide, murder, a scheming woman, a setup, a frame-up, a dodgy doctor and a psychotic gangster.
To be honest, the plot is a bit ordinary as was the story in the original novel, but just as it was on the printed page, the power of the movie was in the telling.
Years ago, I read Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels and if the plots weren't overly convoluted, they were implausible. The success was in the character Chandler created and the way he described his world. Altman got it; the film is different to the novel, but it's all about Marlowe and the way he reacts to what is happening around him.
Altman didn't set his film in the late 40's as depicted in the novel, otherwise it would have been more like "Farewell My Lovely" with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe made a couple of years later.
Altman places Marlowe in 1970's Los Angeles. Bogart and Mitchum gave us classic Marlowe, but Elliott Gould gives us something different. He's a man who sticks to a personal set of principles despite seeming out of place. Elliott Gould plays him as pretty chilled-out, and the film captures a sense of disillusionment with just about everything – it was the 70's after all.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a non-speaking part as a heavy, and an aging Sterling Hayden plays an author with issues. Perfect casting really as the imposing Hayden was apparently drunk or stoned most of the time on this film.
The movie has a different ending to the novel and it's not a totally satisfying one; the final scene even pays a little homage to the final scene in "The Third Man". One thing the film does is highlight the unique vision of Robert Altman who gave a new twist to an almost dead genre.
Private eye Philip Marlow lives in Los Angeles with his cat. When a friend asks to be driven to Mexico, it leads into a story of suicide, murder, a scheming woman, a setup, a frame-up, a dodgy doctor and a psychotic gangster.
To be honest, the plot is a bit ordinary as was the story in the original novel, but just as it was on the printed page, the power of the movie was in the telling.
Years ago, I read Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels and if the plots weren't overly convoluted, they were implausible. The success was in the character Chandler created and the way he described his world. Altman got it; the film is different to the novel, but it's all about Marlowe and the way he reacts to what is happening around him.
Altman didn't set his film in the late 40's as depicted in the novel, otherwise it would have been more like "Farewell My Lovely" with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe made a couple of years later.
Altman places Marlowe in 1970's Los Angeles. Bogart and Mitchum gave us classic Marlowe, but Elliott Gould gives us something different. He's a man who sticks to a personal set of principles despite seeming out of place. Elliott Gould plays him as pretty chilled-out, and the film captures a sense of disillusionment with just about everything – it was the 70's after all.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a non-speaking part as a heavy, and an aging Sterling Hayden plays an author with issues. Perfect casting really as the imposing Hayden was apparently drunk or stoned most of the time on this film.
The movie has a different ending to the novel and it's not a totally satisfying one; the final scene even pays a little homage to the final scene in "The Third Man". One thing the film does is highlight the unique vision of Robert Altman who gave a new twist to an almost dead genre.