When private eye Philip Marlowe is visited by an old friend, this sets in motion a series of events in which he’s hired to search for a missing novelist and finds himself on the wrong side of vicious gangsters. Relocating Raymond Chandler’s most famous creation to the selfish, hedonistic culture of 1970s Hollywood, Altman infuriated the purists. Misunderstood for decades, it is now regarded as one of the outstanding American films of its era.
Andy Willis, Professor of Film Studies, School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, reviews The Long Goodbye here