An anti-noir interpretation of Chandler: The Long Goodbye

Robert Altman's 1973 remake of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, starring Elliot Gould (what a shame that his career seems to have evaporated) in a tour-de-force starring role is in way an anti-noir interpretation of Chandler. Gould/Altman's Marlowe isn't a taciturn tough guy but he's a neurotic mess, constantly talking to himself, keeping up a running commentary on the action, and mouthing off to guys much tougher than he is, completely oblivious of the danger he's putting himself in - and that's how he succeeds, so cool that others bend to his will, because they can't ruffle him. The movie is set in then-contemporary LA and rather than the noir look that we're familiar w/ in detective stories and films - the dark office in a rundown street in the business district, nightclubs w/ crooners, shot-and-beer bars, dingy waterfronts, etc. - this LA is brighter, airier, Gould/Marlowe does business out of his apartment, which is in a weirdly distinctive art moderne complex - his only apparent neighbors are a suite of young beauties who spend all day getting high and doing yoga. There are various running gags about animals - a cat that's a picky eater, a doberman that his it in for Marlowe, some dogs in a Mexican village that copulate on cue - and all told, it's vintage Altman: characters tend to talk over each other, lots of long tracking shots, real establishment of atmosphere, lots of jazz variants on a single musical theme, and if the plot seems to fall apart as the movie progresses who cares really? This film, not much seen these days I think, forms a group with MASH, Nashville, a couple of others from that era as establish a particular type of insouciant male character and a social milieu that is recognizable this director's alone.