The Long Goodbye is a 1973 American neo-noir satirical mystery crime thriller film directed by Robert Altman and based on Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel. The screenplay was written by Leigh Brackett, who co-wrote the screenplay for Chandler's The Big Sleep in 1946. The film stars Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe and features Sterling Hayden, Nina Van Pallandt, Jim Bouton (in a rare acting role), Mark Rydell and an early uncredited appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The story's period was moved from 1949–50 to 1970s Hollywood. The Long Goodbye has been described as "a study of a moral and decent man cast adrift in a selfish, self-obsessed society where lives can be thrown away without a backward glance ... and any notions of friendship and loyalty are meaningless." In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot Late one night, private investigator Philip Marlowe goes to a supermarket to buy cat food and upon returning is visited by his close friend Terry Lennox. Lennox asks for a lift from Los Angeles to the California–Mexico border at Tijuana, which Marlowe obliges. On returning home, Marlowe is met by two police detectives who ask questions about Lennox and then arrest Marlow because he refuses to answer any questions. During questioning, Marlowe learns that Lennox has been accused of killing his wife, Sylvia. After he is jailed for three days, the police release him, because they have learned that Lennox has committed suicide in Mexico. The police and the press seem to believe it is an obvious case, but Marlowe does not accept the official facts. Marlowe is then hired by Eileen Wade, who asks him to find her missing husband Roger Wade, an alcoholic novelist with writer's block whose macho, Hemingway-like persona is proving self-destructive, resulting in days-long disappearances from their Malibu Colony home. While investigating Eileen's missing husband, Marlowe visits the subculture of private detoxification clinics for rich alcoholics and drug addicts. He locates and recovers Roger and learns that the Wades knew the Lennoxes socially, and suspects that there is more to Lennox's suicide and Sylvia's murder. Marlowe later incurs the wrath of gangster Marty Augustine, who wants money returned that Lennox was sent to deliver to Mexico City, and threatens Marlowe by maiming his own mistress. After a side-trip to Mexico, where