The Long Goodbye the Movie, IV the Movie?

[Robin Landseadel]

On Dec 10, 2009, at 9:44 AM, rich wrote:

> for those who have seen the movie The Long Goodbye and read the novel
> (both of which are great tho different beyond the medium), and with
> all that booze talk, one thing I noticed watching the movie is that
> Marlowe, if anything, smokes like a fiend, and not so much of downing
> the hootch.

> which leads to me to ask whether anyone who would film a version of IV
> would so emphasize the pot smoking as much as it is in the book

In this clip the very first thing Elliot Gould's Marlowe does after  
getting out of bed is light up a fag.  At 5:25 he lights up a new one  
on the doorsill as he enters the all-night grocery store. At 7:25 he's  
still smoking as he hands the brownie mix boxes to the girls next door  
and the last time we see him in this clip he's still got a cancer  
stick between his lips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u0uo0TxS-I

> and if they did I would think it would resemble elliot gould's
> chainsmoking in the Long Goodbye.

Doc does plenty of chainsmoking all by himself.

> just thinking here and as Yosemite Sam says "and my head hurts"

Cigarettes get a lot of play in Noir—in Chinatown, cigarettes and  
glossy cigarette cases get a lot of screen-time.  There's a scene  
where Mrs. Mulwray and Jake Gittes get to an unsettling point in their  
conversation and Mrs. Mulwray nervously lights up a cigarette while  
another of hers is only half-way smoked, burning away in the ashtray.  
That scene is around the 50 second mark in this clip [here the  
soundtrack has been substituted with a period performance of "Why  
Don't You Do Right?"]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFvM9lwh_J8

Obviously there's cigarettes all throughout Noir, often creating  
dazzling lighting effects in the movies. "Out of the Past" and "The  
Big Sleep" played with cigarettes & smoke constantly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDQHnA8skfY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY7kBLE_AxI&feature=related

Cigarettes are a constant throughout Inherent Vice as well—Doc has a  
moment rather like Mrs. Mulwray's when, flustered, he lights the wrong  
end of a Kool and the book mentions various different social uses for  
different kinds of smokes.