The Long Goodbye (1973)

Directed by: Robert Altman

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: Raymond Chandler’s classic detective steps into modern day Hollywood when Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) becomes involved in a complicated murder mystery after driving a friend (Jim Bouton) to the Mexican border. Shortly afterward he is hired by Eileen Wade (Nina van Pallandt) to find her missing husband, writer Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden.) The question is how do these cases tie together and why is the local mob boss (Mark Rydell) threatening Marlowe’s life?

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): The film opens with Marlowe asleep on his bed when his hungry orange tabby cat comes in and wakes him up.

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat on Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould lying on bed

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat with Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould lying on bed

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat jumping onto Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould lying on bed animated gif

Turns out it’s three o’clock in the morning and this sets off one of the most satisfying film openings ever, with Marlowe groggily stumbling to the kitchen to find his cat (which apparently has no name) something to eat.

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat on pantry shelf

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat placed on shelf by Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould then jumping down animated gif

The cat anxiously paces around Marlow, jumping up on the counters and the refrigerator, looking for the forthcoming meal.

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat on refrigerator behind Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould lying on bed

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat on kitchen floor

Sadly Marlowe is all out of the cat’s favorite food, so he whips up a bizarre concoction of cottage cheese and raw eggs sprinkled with a liberal amount of salt. At this mess the cat understandably turns up his nose.

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat watching Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould making food

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat watching as Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould mixes food

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat sniffing at pan of food on counter

After dumping the makeshift meal on the floor, the cat leaps to Marlowe’s shoulder. Marlowe knows what he has to do.

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat dumping food given to him by Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould onto floor animated gif

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat on Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould's shoulder

Like any dutiful cat owner, Marlowe goes to the store to get the correct brand of cat food only to find they have none in stock. He returns with the wrong brand, thinking he can fool his feline companion by placing the contents into one of the old cans.

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat watching Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould open can of cat food

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat eyeing plate of cat food with Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould

Needless to say this ruse doesn’t work either and the cat exits El Porto del Gato, as the cat door is lovingly labeled (for whom, we wonder? Can the cat read? And is he Mexican?)

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat looking at bowl of food

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat running out through cat door

Sadly the cat is not seen in the film again, but he is mentioned often, most notably in the film’s classic final line!

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat rejecting food given to him by Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould and running out through cat door animated gif

Behind the Scenes

While the cat only appears at the beginning of the film, so much is related about Marlowe and the film itself from those opening moments. In an interview with Elliott Gould for the Beverly Cinema website, writer Kim Morgan asked about Marlowe’s relationship with cats, pointing out that the cat was key because “you can’t lie to a cat.” Elliott replied, “Well, sure that was Altman! Altman said to me before we started to shoot, he told me the first sequence with the cat and the food. He said, ‘That’s the theme of the picture.'”

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat with Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould in kitchen

In the March / April 1974 issue of Film Comment magazine, Robert Altman discussed the importance of the cat with interviewer Jan Dawson this way: “You could say that the real mystery of The Long Goodbye is where Marlowe’s cat had gotten to. I shot the film in sequence; and I think that the most important thing we do in the film is to set up the whole cat sequence at the beginning. That, I think, tells audiences that this isn’t going to be Humphrey Bogart, it isn’t going to be broads and fights. It’s almost obligatory in this sort of film to open up with some very heavy action; we did just the opposite.

“Marlowe had no affinity with dogs. He was a cat man. I think you have to be one or the other. You see very few people sitting around their apartments with dogs at their feet and cats on their shoulders — it rarely ever happens. So Marlowe had this cat, this very fickle cat, that wouldn’t stay with him. And every time he came home, he looked for that cat. Although I had the feeling he knew he was never going to find that cat again. The minute he didn’t give the cat exactly what he wanted, it left him.”

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat being fed by Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould

Many online sources credit Morris the Cat in this role (probably because of the finicky eater stigma) but in Morris’ biography they state he turned this role down after having appeared in the film Shamus earlier in the year (the biographer, Mary Daniels, explained that Morris didn’t want to be typecast.)

Another website claims the cat was played by a feline thespian named Chauncey Scratchet, but we can find no other reference to this name anywhere else.

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat looking at Philip Marlowe Elliot Gould

While we can’t seem to find any actual credit for the part we suspect the cat was trained by Frank Inn (or a trainer who worked with him) given the fact that the cat jumps on Elliott Gould’s shoulder at one point, a classic Orangey move (there is a possibility it is actually one of the Orangey team but the kitty doesn’t seem to have the classic Orangey traits.)

The Long Goodbye - ginger tabby cat sitting on counter

Whoever this unknown Scene Stealer is, they did their job very well! While reviews for the film were mixed at the time of release (it has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years) the cat was almost always mentioned and praised as one of the highlights of the film. Vincent Canby of The New York Times Service even opened a piece about that year’s Oscar contenders with the headline, “And why wasn’t cat nominated for an Oscar?” He went on to ask, “If the academy’s actor-members are such pushovers for the sentimental and the bizarre, how could they possibly have not nominated as a best supporting actress the extraordinarily witty cat who made the opening sequences of Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” so memorable? Okay, so the cat’s a he, but it’s a simple technicality that could, if necessary, be fixed.”

The significance of the cat was not lost in the advertising materials for the film, many of which featured at least some variation of cat.

A whole series of ads designed in the style of a Mad Magazine parody (and was in fact drawn by Mad Magazine artist Jack Davis) featured the cast and crew commenting on their own picture. The cat is front and center on Marlowe’s shoulder. These clever caricatures were also included in newspaper ads in various layouts and sizes.