Opening footage: The Long Goodbye, via YouTube.

Vilmos Zsigmond, the cinematographer on The Long Goodbye, said it was the funniest comedy he had ever filmed, due to Elliot Gould's characterization of Philip Marlowe.

Elliot Gould was never better than in [“The Long Goodbye”]. He plays this private eye who looks really dumb but he’s not dumb.

In a Rolling Stone interview, Zsigmond said "a cinematographer can only be as good as the di...