Trivia / The Long Goodbye

The film:

• Cast the Runner-Up: Steve McQueen was offered the role of Phillip Marlowe, but his asking price was too high. He did make a cameo appearance that ended up on the cutting room floor.
• The Danza: Several of the minor characters—Jo Ann Brody as Jo Ann (Augustine's mistress), Rutanya Alda as Rutanya (one of Marlowe's hippie neighbors), Jack Riley as Riley (the piano player), Pepe Callahan as Pepe (Augustine's bilingual thug).
• Deleted Role: Steve McQueen had a cameo as Sam Spade that ended up on the cutting room floor.
• Deleted Scene: There was originally a scene where Marlowe meets Sam Spade (played by Steve McQueen) in an elevator. The scene is not known to survive, with the only evidence of its existence being on-set production stills.
• Genre-Killer: Altman is said to have wanted this film to be this for the Hardboiled Detective kind of Film Noir. Didn't happen, though.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Elliott Gould, who specialized in playing neurotic, eccentric New Yorkers, as a Hardboiled Detective from LA, was one of the New Hollywood era's most celebrated examples of this.
  • Henry Gibson, best known at the time for his dorky characters on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, as the dour, amoral Dr. Verringer.
• Screwed by the Network: United Artists botched its initial release by promoting it as a straight Detective Drama. A few months later they re-released it but the marketing implied that it was a rollicking Parody of Philip Marlowe, when it's really more like a darkly satiric Retool.
• Stillborn Franchise: Elliott Gould has said that so long as he is physically able he holds out hopes that he could reprise the role of Phillip Marlowe. He has a screenplay entitled It's Always Now, based on a Raymond Chandler story, The Curtain. The Chandler estate sold him the rights to the story for $1.
• Throw It In!: It's a Robert Altman film, so there's lots of this.
  • Elliott Gould ad-libbed many of Marlowe's quips. The shot of the two amorously-engaged dogs on the street of the Mexican village obviously wasn't planned but was memorable enough to stay in the film. He also improvised the scene in police custody in which he smears fingerprint ink all over his face.
  • Gould and Sterling Hayden's dialogue during the drinking scenes was improvised because Hayden was drunk and stoned on marijuana most of the time.
• Uncredited Role: David Carradine as Marlowe's cellmate as Dave aka Socrates.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Lee Marvin and Robert Mitchum were considered for Phillip Marlowe. Mitchum would later star in adaptations of Farewell, My Lovely and The Big Sleep.
  • The directing job was offered to both Howard Hawks (who had directed The Big Sleep) and Peter Bogdanovich, who both turned it down.
  • Altman originally wanted Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza) whom he originally directed in early episodes of the series, to play Roger Wade. Tragically, Blocker died from a post-surgery complication at the age of 44. The film is dedicated to him. John Huston was considered for Wade before Hayden was cast.
• Written by Cast Member: Sterling Hayden wrote his own scenes.

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