tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post3557641711390917364..comments2024-03-19T21:14:01.007-07:00Comments on The Compass Rose: The Long Goodbye [1973] - Lest I ForgetCurtis Favillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-67805389576536811162010-08-12T13:14:27.018-07:002010-08-12T13:14:27.018-07:00VELMA! Ellay's still sort of...controlled by ...VELMA! Ellay's still sort of...controlled by Velmas.....<br /><br />who was the broad in Mitchum's version of FML? She played a great drunken harlot .<br /><br />there have been a few ok flicks made from James Thompson's books. After Dark my sweet for one. The Grifters not bad, if tamed down (McQueen's Getaway...quite rockin' tho un-PC, until the botched happy non-ending). one might say his sparse ...bleak western noirs are made for movie-land. Peckinpah fest on Fagville.com...yay.Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-35946532085549799052010-08-12T12:25:13.826-07:002010-08-12T12:25:13.826-07:00Conrad did Marshall Dillon on the radio version of...Conrad did Marshall Dillon on the radio version of Gunsmoke. Odd to think of him preceding James Arness. <br /><br />He had a neat part in The Naked Jungle (which starred Charlton Heston). "Marabunta!..."Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-17269114519835871542010-08-12T12:14:33.002-07:002010-08-12T12:14:33.002-07:00best Phillip Marlowe?
used to neve4 missed watch...best Phillip Marlowe?<br /><br /><br />used to neve4 missed watching and episode ON RADIO... on our Arvin...<br /><br />Dick Powell was the Best<br /><br />or was it that guy named Mair (?)...<br /><br />I seem to recall that the <br />Wagon Train guy was also a pretty good Marlowe... Conrad..<br /><br />and<br /><br />who played Velma? Veronica Lake?<br /><br />Powell did Marlowe: Murder My Sweet...<br /><br />a movie/film<br />as 'good as it gets'<br /><br />Old Time radio used to broadcast the radio serial of Marlowe... maybe yet does.Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-87937068398299462292010-08-12T11:54:29.534-07:002010-08-12T11:54:29.534-07:00Don't watch Short Cuts then, unless you want C...Don't watch Short Cuts then, unless you want Carver-made-for TV movie of the week (or to see another example of how directors botch books). <br /><br />For a few years back in the 90s I read Carver's tales, cathedral, etc. But g-d depressing. Entropic, even, tho a nice antidote to ...beats or bad sci fi,etc. Str8, no chaser.<br /><br /> California's still Carverland. Even more so after what 8 years of Ahhnuldnomics and the GOP yacht clubJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-92091054550576652952010-08-12T11:46:53.827-07:002010-08-12T11:46:53.827-07:00J:
I understand very well what you mean.
I'm...J:<br /><br />I understand very well what you mean.<br /><br />I'm not a big fan of Altman's bleary, sprawling vision of America, either. You get isolated, special moments, but the whole seldom hangs together.<br /><br />There's something smeared, day-glo-ish about his Long Goodbye, but that was very much of that period--early Seventies. Gould's Marlowe is "old-fashioned" and doesn't trust the new wave of free love and expensive hipness. He's a throwback, but he's also contemporary. He's burned-out, used-up, thrown away. But he's a witness, slipping through the cracks.<br /><br />Carver's a genius. Just short helpings of dessert. I didn't see Short Cuts.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-11066467204123577972010-08-12T11:33:03.188-07:002010-08-12T11:33:03.188-07:00Yes I get the "what if" aspect --Chandle...Yes I get the "what if" aspect --Chandler in 1973...though we might view the LG as yet another Tinseltown rip-off of a decent novel-- or something. <br /><br />Altman's realism's not my preferred cup of wormwood anyway. His movies seem ugly in a sense, including that odd, dreamy western-on-opium flick McCabe (and pretty boy- phony Beatty sort of like the actor's equivalent of Altman).. <br /><br />OR Short Cuts. I wager you read Raymond Carver once...did the movie seem that Carver-like? Not to me. A few sections--really it seemed like a soft-porn flick, having little to do with Carver's little tragedies. Hollywood pimped every dream we ever had, or something (paraphrasing Burroughs, the old creep). <br /><br />I generally prefer just the tough-guy cop shows and spaghetti westerns, however un PC to any attempts at sophistication or lit-er-rary themes (or space opera). The Good, bad and the ugly keeps it real at least.Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-60654344881318556712010-08-12T11:23:24.801-07:002010-08-12T11:23:24.801-07:00Gould was great in Getting Straight.Gould was great in Getting Straight.Craighttp://pinnacled.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-19928899641568977592010-08-12T11:02:40.531-07:002010-08-12T11:02:40.531-07:00J:
Interesting comment.
I think we're talkin...J:<br /><br />Interesting comment.<br /><br />I think we're talking about an ideal profile, here, rather than the gist of Chandler's plots and atmosphere.<br /><br />Altman was trying to do an "updated" version of Noir, not a re-creation (the way Chinatown is). It isn't a period piece, it's Marlowe imagined as how he might be in 1973. <br /><br />The "private investigator" was a type created in the 1920's-1930's for pulp consumption. Chandler refined the genre, giving his heroes a little more dimensionality and drift. There's no "ideal" Marlowe, just as there's no ideal Sam Spade. <br /><br />What sort of person would even think of "being" a private eye in 1973? Or today? Not a very respectable profession, at any time. Mostly a device to parlay violence and disgrace and corruption from a scenic vantage. It seemed to me that Gould was a possible application of the nerd--rough around the edges--who might end up doing something like that. You wouldn't expect the Marlowe of 1942 going into the private investigation business today--he'd be a loan officer or a real estate salesman instead.<br /><br />Mitchum was at least 20 years too old to play Marlowe when he did. And 30 pounds too heavy, too. Mitchum got into the same loop as Robert Taylor and Cary Grant--trying to play "young men" into his Sixties.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-953323303302539152010-08-12T10:27:12.764-07:002010-08-12T10:27:12.764-07:00It's been some time since I watched twenty min...It's been some time since I watched twenty minutes or so of the Long Goodbye (and/or read Chandler's book) but Gould as Marlowe, like brown shoes, don't make it. OK, the goomba gets his lines right, and was OK in MASH (sorta) but...Marlowe's a hard guy, Sir F. I believe you said you didn't care for Mitchum's Marlowe--but that's what he's like (even if RM was a bit ripened when he did it), if not nearly Eastwood, say in early stories like Farewell, My Lovely (actually prefer early Chandler...Long Goodway interesting but sort of ...rambles). <br /><br />The Rockford files dude did a pretty good job as Marlowe actually. <br /><br /> Bogie in Big Sleep has the voice and looks to a degree, but...sort of...half-pint when full's needed--Bogie tho IS Sam Spade, in Falcon at least. Or something.<br /><br /><br /><br />Ahhnuld on the other hand's a living cartoon, and possibly one of the most sinister people on the face of the earth currently living. WordJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-63830588300493359982010-08-12T09:56:01.605-07:002010-08-12T09:56:01.605-07:00But not for long....But not for long....Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-49219628601254863372010-08-12T09:47:01.316-07:002010-08-12T09:47:01.316-07:00Before MASH he'd been Ted in Bob and Carol and...Before MASH he'd been Ted in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, but mostly he was Barbara Streisand's husband.Craighttp://pinnacled.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-72002128800609485072010-08-12T04:54:26.881-07:002010-08-12T04:54:26.881-07:00Ring Lardner Jr. might have had something to do wi...Ring Lardner Jr. might have had something to do with Altman's leap from television obscurity to the Oscars. Didn't Gould have a leading role in MASH?Craighttp://pinnacled.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.com