Four days ago an interesting listing popped up in the L.A. housing section of Craigslist: “At the end of a cul de sac near the Hollywood Bowl, park your car in a garage carved into the hill. Walk through a gated tunnel to a private elevator where you’ll be taken up 6 stories through the hill to the top of a Tuscan tower. Nestled in a quiet walk street enclave high above the bustle of Hollywood Blvd.”

After some more description comes this: “This is the apartment that Elliot Gould’s character lived in in Robert Altman’s ‘The Long Goodbye’. A movie worth seeing if you’re not familiar with it.”
 

 
Well, well! So this is the apartment from The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman’s marvelous, gauzy, very 1970s take on Raymond Chandler’s 1953 Philip Marlowe novel. It’s a very diffuse movie but still packs a punch. (And it’s the second-ever movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it.) 
 
The rent is $2,800 a month. If you do rent the place and a guy called Terry Lennox shows up asking for help, tell him to go away. And if you have cats, make sure you stock the cupboards with plenty of Curry—Courry?—cat food.
 

 

 

 

 

 
Here’s the opening sequence, which is probably the best part of the movie and also, you get to see the apartment in it.
 

 
via Lawyers, Guns & Money

 
This week, I’ve been wandering around DM Towers dressed like this. While it’s been fun to whack about with a 9-iron, I doubt I looked as cool (or as cheesy) as these two guys: Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H.

M*A*S*H was the first ‘X’ certificate film I sneaked into, when I was about 14. It was on a re-release with the pornographically titled The Last Hard Men, which was (disappointingly) a western starring Charlton Heston, James Coburn and Barbara Hershey. An interesting double bill that nearly explains what was good and bad about the seventies
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Donald Sutherland gives a brief history of his career: Rare interview form 1979

 
Donald Sutherland’s big break came in Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen, when co-star Clint Walker refused to play a scene—as Sutherland explained to the Daily Telegraph:

‘...Clint Walker sticks up his hand and says, ‘Mr Aldrich, as a representative of the Native American people, I don’t think it’s appropriate to do this stupid scene where I have to pretend to be a general.’ Aldrich turns and points to me and says, ‘You — with the big ears. You do it’....It changed my life.’

“Big Ears” was born Donald McNichol Sutherland in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, in July 1935. He moved to England in the late 1950s, where he briefly studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, leaving after 9 months to start his professional career as an actor. Sutherland was soon acting in various BBC plays, and guest starring in episodes of such cult TV series as The Saint and The Avengers. Sutherland also co-starred with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Michael Gough in the classic Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, where he played a newly-wed doctor who suspects his wife is a vampire. After a stint in repertory theater, including 2 disastrous productions, Sutherland’s career seemed stalled. The Dirty Dozen changed that.

During the 1970s, Sutherland made some of the most iconic and seminal films of the decade, including M*A*S*H (a film he originally hated), Kelly’s Heroes (which nearly cost him his life), Klute, Little Murders (a cameo), the unforgettable Don’t Look Now, The Day of the Locust (as the original Homer Simpson), 1900, Casanova, The Eagle Has Landed and National Lampoon’s Animal House.

When asked on the set of Bear Island, in 1979, if he considered himself a star, Sutherland replied that Peter O’Toole is a star, as he has that certain something, while he just makes a lot of movies. Personally, I’d beg to differ. Sutherland gives a brief history of his career, discussing the highlights M*A*S*H, working with Fellini on Casanova and the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Some man, some talent, some head of hair.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous MInds

Donald Sutherland’s hairstyles throughout the years

Donald Sutherland: His Films and Hairstyles

 
With thanks to NellyM
 

 
After the success of his B-movie The Delinquents, Robert Altman was given the job of co-directing (with George W. George) a documentary on James Dean. The association of Altman’s surprise hit—about out-of-control kids who just “gotta have action”—and the young actor—who appealed to these troubled teenagers—was considered by Warner Brothers as too good an opportunity to miss.

Made in 1957, two years after the actor’s death, The James Dean Story is well-made documentary composed from archive and photographic footage, interviews and out-takes, which gives a great sense of Dean’s life and talents. The film was also a key piece in the actor’s mythologizing.

According to Forbes magazine, the James Dean estate makes $5m a year, which is more than the star made his lifetime. That his fame continues to grow says much about Dean’s ability to epitomize that certain something generations of film-goers have identified with over the past six decades. As Dennis Hopper once said about Dean:

“He seemed to capture that moment of youth, that moment where we’re all desperately seeking to find ourselves.”

Or, as Dean himself said, in a line from Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s The Little Prince:

“What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

 
Another fantastic find, courtesy EggCityRadio, Gerald Busby‘s scary-as-shit, flute-heavy soundtrack to Robert Altman‘s 3 Women.  Along with The Long Goodbye and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, 3 Women definitely makes my “classic” Altman shortlist.  That’s not to say, of course, I don’t love MASH, or Nashville, or even Short Cuts, but I think those larger, “tapestry” films play far more to the head than they do the heart.

What’s 3 Women all about?  Well, imagine Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s Performance played out in Palm Springs with James Fox and Mick Jagger swapped out for Sissy Spacek and Shelly Duvall.  If it unfurls like a dream, that’s probably because Altman dreamed the movie first, turned it into a screenplay, then proceeded to shoot something he was still himself just sorting out.  But, hey, maybe that’s how you made masterpieces back in the ‘70s?  The trailer for 3 Women follows below:

 
The 3 Women soundtrack

Bonus I: 3 Women Part I

Bonus II: The Life & Times of Gerald Busby