More Raymond Chandler Thoughts II 5-2010

[Continued from More Raymond Chandler Thoughts I 5-2010 sch 10/29/22]

Yes, I know Elliott Gould played Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye. I saw it in my teens, when Gould was still known as a movie star. I saw it a few years ago, and I found it unwatchable. I think the mistake made was not in updating (see James Garner's Marlowe), but in the conception of the character.

Reading The Long Goodbye again gave me more trouble than any of the others [in an Everyman Library collection of The Lady in the Lake to Playback. sch 10/29/22]. I did not do a page count, but I think it is the longest of Chandler's books. I finally solved my problem when I realized The Long Goodbye is to Chandler what Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. It is a novel masquerading as something else.

Time for HBO to give it a look - although Powers Booth is probably too old. Do it as a miniseries instead of a movie (and go for everything else Chandler except for The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely - only going to waste money dealing with those two.) Treat The Long Goodbye as touching on the same subject as Chinatown - how money corrupted California.

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