Take One (Sep-Oct 1972)

human rage. Something the old Marlowe would never have done. He would have set Terry up somehow, got somebody else to pull the trigger. At least one critic went into a frothing fit over this blasphemy. But it seemed right, and honest. Chandler’s Marlowe operated in his own peculiar world. Bogart’s Marlowe perforce operated within both Chandler’s world and the restrictions of the Code then governing motion picture morality. Being free of both in the ’70s, we felt that we could be bold. There ensued one of those long delays at the top level, which involved yet another delay due to having lost Mr. Hutton to another commitment. The project sat, as far as | was concerned, for several months — during which time | did a lot of thinking. The bad premise that had hampered us was easily remedied. And after having grappled with them repeatedly and without joy, there were some characters | felt | could lose: the Too Rich Old Man, his Gorgeous Oversexed Daughter, the dutifully corrupt and sinful Idle Valley types exemplified by Dr. Loring. In other words, tell the Roger Wade story and forget the rest. It was all we had room for. | discussed this by letter with Elliott and Jerry. Then Robert Altman came on the scene and said, “I see Marlowe the way Chandler saw him, a loser. But areal loser, not the fake winner that Chandler made out of him. A loser all the way.” And things began to fall into place. Chandler himself characterized Marlowe as a “loser” vis-a-vis a society where money was the measure of success. But he showed you that the things Marlowe gained by losing — independence, pride, honesty, the ability to say no, to be his own man — were wealth far and above the dirty dollars he might have made by selling out his integrity. Which is a premise, | think, that few will quarrel with. This is what we all liked in Marlowe, what we admired: the man in the mean streets who was not himself mean, a folk-hero in a snap-brim hat and trenchcoat. We did not contravene these tenets. Gould’s Marlowe is a man of simple faith, honesty, trust, and complete integrity. All we did was strip him of the fake hero attributes. Chandler's Marlowe always knew more than the cops. He could be beaten to a pulp, but he always came out on top one way or another. By sheer force of personality, professional expertise, and gall, he always had an edge. We said, “A man like this hasn’t got an edge. He gets kicked around. People don’t take him seriously. They don't know what he’s all about, and they don’t care.” So instead of being the tough-guy, Marlowe became the patsy. The story line of the Roger Wade portion of the novel was greatly simplified. Much of it would have been unusable in any case because of the WWII time-frame involved in the original relationship between Eileen and Terry. Much of it made very little sense anyway, on close examination. We relieved Eileen of all crimes except adultery, simplified motives all round, made the murder of Roger a suicide, gave the gambler a satchelful of money to tie things together, and stayed with the brutal ending. And Marlowe was a loser. The girl didn’t walk out on him, she just didn’t know he was there. He didn’t even win a fight. He was a man out of his time, clinging to outworn ideals of honesty and fair play, only to find out that, in Chandler’s own words, the man who tries to be honest looks in the end either sentimental or plain foolish. The ending is Marlowe’s reaction of rage not only against the betrayer Lennox, but against the hatefulness of a world that permits this to be true. Those were the basics of the script, the mechanics. From there Robert Altman took off, and the view from the camera became uniquely and brilliantly his own, turning the whole thing into a satire on the genre itself. In its first release, the film was greeted, by some critics, with the tone of outrage generally reserved for those who tamper with the Bible. This seems just a bit silly to me. I’m an old Chandler fan from way back, probably farther back than a lot of ‘ the critics. He was a powerful influence on my own work in those years. But | don’t feel that any sacrilege was being committed. And | doubt that Chandler himself would have regarded every aspect of his work as Holy Writ. | think he might even have liked Altman’s version END] of The Long Goodbye. 28 (eum Ig lets you get close to nature! ! eumig Viennette The exceptional Eumig MAKRO-VIENNAR lens in the Viennette 8 movie camera is a genuine macro-zooming system. It provides continuous transition from the normal 8:1 shooting range into the macro range. 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