found the idea contrived. The script deviates markedly from the 1953 novel. Screenwriter Leigh Brackett took many liberties with the story, plot and characters of The Long Goodbye in her adaptation. In the film, Marlowe kills his best friend, Terry Lennox. Lennox did kill his own wife, because she discovered he was having an affair with Eileen, and he admits this to Marlowe. The father of millionairess Sylvia Lennox, Sylvia herself as well as her sister, do not appear in the film; Roger Wade commits suicide in the film, rather than being murdered; and gangster Marty Augustine and his subplots are additions to the film. Bernie Ohls, Marlowe's sometime-friend on the LAPD, is also absent. The film quotes from the novel when Marlowe, under police interrogation, asks, "Is this where I'm supposed to say, 'What's all this about?' and he [the cop] says, 'Shut up! I ask the questions'?" Throughout the film are stylistic nods to the Chandler novels and 1950s American culture. Marlowe drives a 1948 Lincoln Continental convertible Cabriolet, in contrast with the contemporary cars driven by others in the film. Marlowe also chain smokes in the film, in contrast with a health-conscious California; no one else smokes on screen. A "making-of" featurette on the DVD is entitled "Rip van Marlowe", a reference to the character Rip Van Winkle, to emphasize the contrast between Marlowe's anachronistic 1950s behavior and the film's 1970s setting. Robert Altman The producers offered the script to both Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich to direct it. Both refused the offer, but Bogdanovich recommended Robert Altman. United Artists president David Picker may have picked Gould to play Marlowe as a ploy to get Altman to direct. At the time, Gould was in professional disfavor because of his rumored troubles on the set of A Glimpse of Tiger, in which he bickered with costar Kim Darby, fought with director Anthony Harvey, and acted erratically. Consequently, he had not worked in nearly two years; nevertheless, Altman convinced Bick that Gould suited the role. United Artists had Elliott Gould undergo the usual employment medical examination, and also a psychological examination attesting to his mental stability. In January 1972 it was announced Altman and Gould would make the film. Altman called the film "a satire in melancholy." In adapting Chandler's book, Leigh Brackett had problems with its plot, which she felt was "riddled with cliches", and faced the choice