So you’re saying today was basically the worst day to let Sam Strange persuade me to dip into the weird world of Tyler Perry?
Kubrick’s The Killing has to be in any heist-movie list.
Oooh good one. With the serious Sterling Hayden before he got so cuckoo for bodily fluids.
Asphalt Jungle motherfuckers! Also with Sterling Hayden.
Excellent additions. Although, I’m telling you, if you haven’t seen Gun Crazy, it’s no joke one of the best heist scenes ever: the whole thing is shot from the backseat of the getaway car, in one take. Pretty audacious for 1950.
I’m in. No crap movies for a week.
Today’s pick: Mr Smith Goes To Washington
The ending ruined The Long Goodbye for me, but Sterling Hayden was a fucking revelation.
I gotta hear more about this point, Ed, re: the ending of The Long Goodbye. I ask because I think the ending is utterly brilliant, revealing a depth to Altman and Gould’s characterization of Marlowe (trapped as he is in the vapidity of 70s California) that is cleverly hidden until the very end. It’s crazy and audacious, and makes rewatching the film a real treat.
The Long Goodbye eh…that may be my second stop after wild strawberries…
I might suggest starting with Nashville if you’re new to Altman. It’s one of his best - maybe the best - but it’s also the one that I think best showcased his many unique strengths as a director.
Or MAS*H, which is a different creature than the television series it spawned, but not so different as to be unrecognizable. The film has a slightly more cynical edge to it.
I’m not new to Altman so it’s an utter mystery to me how I missed his 1973 film noir with Sterling Hayden. I feel like a jerk.
(out of every other altman film i’ve seen Nashville is my all time fav, and mccabe and mrs. miller has a special place in my heart).
EDIT: and it’s on netflix streaming!! I know how I’m starting my weekend. Question: for the week of nothing but good shit can we make an exception for the podcast? Cuz lord knows we’ve had some doozies recentely…
I don’t want to spoil the ending, because it is still a great film. So if you haven’t seen it stop reading.
My problem is that Gould’s Marlowe is mostly passive. He doesn’t do much but observe. Murdering his friend at the end of the movie seems totally out of character. Where did this avenging Marlowe come from, we’ve seen no hint of him for the entire movie and them he just appears at the end. It’s just a cheap twist ending.
Also, I think I could write a paper on antisemitism in 70’s neo-noir (yeah, I’m looking at you, The Conversation). Is there any reason the gangster has to be Jewish?
“Your dad is a mohel. I want you to cut it off.”
I’ve had The Third Man on my list of films to see for like 15 years. It’s also been on my Netflix queue for about 6 months.
I’ll start with that one and move on to the other stuff on my queue, mostly foreign films and a few classic I still have never seen (Dr. Zhivago being one).
On the first viewing, that’s how it appears. But in my opinion, it absolutely does not come out of character.
Altman’s take on Marlowe is that he’s a complete fish-out-of-water, something they continually underscore throughout the whole movie. (Notice how Marlowe’s the only one who ever smokes?) Marlowe’s a guy that fit perfectly into the 50s Los Angeles but now is alienated from everything around him.
What the ending shows you is why. Marlowe’s adrift in a morally relative universe, where it’s almost impossible to tell right from wrong. His constant mantra of “It’s OK with me” isn’t resignation, it’s bitter irony: if nobody else cares about right from wrong, why should he? (Take that amazing opener, where Marlowe spends ten minutes of screen time trying to buy cat food. At one point, when Marlowe asks a grocery clerk for a specific brand, the kid at tells him: “Oh, we’re all out of that. Why don’t you get this. All this shit is the same anyways.”)
But, of course, he does care. There’s right, and there’s wrong. Terry Lennox might be right at the end that he’s a born loser, but that doesn’t make it OK for Terry to just get away with murder. The ending turns Marlowe from a washed-up has-been to a character of deeply flawed, horribly tarnished nobility. You might only ever catch a glimpse of it, but it’s there.
Really, then why does he shrug off the brutal attack on the gangster’s moll. She’s viciously attacked right in front of him, and he does nothing. He’s not outraged that Terry has gotten away with murder, he’s outraged he was played for a fool by Terry and Mrs. Wade. He doesn’t come off as noble, he seems like a petulant thug who only cares about justice to the extent it directly effects him.
Well, in the case of the moll, what was he gonna do, exactly? If he had tried anything the gangster would have just killed him on the spot. But absolutely, there’s some element of revenge, too. Marlowe’s not a shining knight; like I say, it’s a tarnished nobility.
That’s not to say you’re wrong, of course. That’s the great thing about American movies in the 70s: ambiguity. I guess we should be thankful that Marlowe didn’t leave a origami unicorn next to Terry’s body at the end.
Now now, I didn’t say it’s one of the greatest heist films of all time. I’m just saying, it’s good, especially for the subgenre of actiony car based heist films.
My problem is, if you don’t care about the gangster, why care about Terry?
And why murder Terry? Why not bring him back to LA to actually be tried for his crime? It doesn’t seem consistent with the character. Its just tacked on because they wanted a twisty ending. It’s the M Night, origami unicorn, school of directing.
I think with LG’s ending you need to take into account his relationship with Terry, I got the impression he and Terry were (to Marlowe anyway) similar souls. The realisation that even a close friend can turn out to be just like the rest is the final straw.