I was in Powell’s Books in Portland last month with some of the WLM crew when a novel with a familiar title snagged me: The Long Good-bye by Raymond Chandler. Several years ago, I’d watched the 1973 Robert Altman film adaptation, so I thought, hey, it’s under ten bucks. I’ll do that thing where you compare the differences and ultimately decide the book’s better, probably.
After shopping, we drove across town with my favorite music playing in my car, Portland’s jazz radio, KMHD, old-fashioned style—coming through the airwaves, snagged by the antenna, pumped through the speakers for us all to enjoy. Then this song came on and I had to stop the car. September and Fawn looked at each other quizzically while I hopped out and retrieved my stash from Powell’s from the trunk. I pulled out The Long Good-bye as the singer crooned “There’s a long goodbye, and it happens every day …”
I hadn’t heard the song since I’d seen the film. Written for the movie, it’s played almost continually throughout the whole film in various styles: elevator music in the grocery store, in a Mexican funeral procession, as schmaltzy drunken piano antics at a wild beach party and more. It was a shock to hear it live over the radio. I almost always have KMHD on at home, and I've never heard it played.
It was a magical moment in the chilly December rain as the sun set mid-afternoon. Which made me miss California. I spent too much time there. Got too attached. And I have a real soft spot for Los Angeles, so the latest news of the fires has been tough to watch. The Palisades Fire is up right smack in the middle of where The Long Good-bye takes place: Malibu, Hollywood, Laurel Canyon where Philip Marlowe lives, and up into Encino where Chandler set “Idle Valley”—the place where the Wades live. I’ve driven all over that area on many occasions. Friends and family live there. It’s easy to fall in love with it if you stop the car and pull over to take in the landscape. Even in January the air smells like something blooming. It breaks your heart.
But I’m not here to convince you to give Los Angeles a chance. I’m here to talk about Chandler and Altman. Which is better: the book or film? I’m sure you’re shocked to hear I think it’s the book. Phillip Marlowe has been portrayed by a number of actors, and Elliott Gould is nice on the eyes, but the version of the classic detective in my mind is always the best. His nuanced relationship with the man who saddles him with a world of trouble in The Long Good-bye can’t be captured on film, and I guess it’s no surprise Altman doesn’t even try. How could you portray lines like, "There are one hundred and ninety ways of being a bastard and Carne knew all of them," and "She had an iron smile and eyes that could count the money in your hip wallet"? And these lines are right next to each other! As usual, there’s so much more detail an author can pack in to make you feel things about the characters, so much more plot to flesh out and destroy, so much more room to take your tie off, light a cigarette, and have some bourbon in your cold coffee while you stare out the window at the city lights below.
But to his credit, Altman had his sights on other aspects, and that’s all right with me if those aspects involve a young Arnold Schwarzenegger stripping down to his underwear. To be fair, the film reflects so many of the cultural and subcultural changes that happened in the twenty years between it and when the novel was published in 1953 that it stands on its own. While the film simplifies the plot, as adaptations inevitably have to, it’s still wild and loose, snappy and smart, filthy and glamorous. They change who killed whom, and though I don’t agree with the final scene’s choices in the film, it still works.
When I left southern California, a final scene choice I bitterly regret (not really, but kind of), I’d spent months preparing, a kind of horrible long goodbye of my own. I went on one last long hike in the misty canyons. When I look at the picture below, I can still smell the damp eucalyptus. I’d like to think I was as cool as Marlowe wrapping up the case, gazing out down the valley, pondering his own conflicted feelings, but I don’t think I escaped unscathed. In the last scene of the novel, Marlowe refuses to say goodbye to his friend. Instead, he says “so long.” I don’t remember if I addressed the ocean in my rear view mirror all those years ago, but I know a part of me never left.
