Mark Rydell

For The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman successfully transports Philip Marlowe, incarnated by Elliott Gould, to the over-privileged, full-color 70s. Marlowe is lonely and shabby, yet does not seem an anachronism in the contemporary world. Unlike Bogart's Marlowe, this is a not especially tough Marlowe. He's a bright, conscientiously solemn nut, a guy who hopes for the best but expects the worst. This particular Philip Marlowe, despite evidence to the...