My throwaway opinion (I haven't seen the discussed version)
is that if this is a "treatment" of hard-boiled/noirish
conventions then the cat could be Marlowe's "female"
companion. Femme fatales in Chandler's work are often
described with feline oriented terms. I believe Carmen and
Vivian are both described as cat-like women and this tendency
is repeated often throughout the HD genre (not only
hard-boiled, but some other genres have it also). So that's
my rant on the cat in The Long Goodbye, and I will probably
not see the movie because of the descriptions I've read of
the movie, I don't think it's my cup of black coffee. Cheers,
Ziggy Nix
James Rogers wrote:
> I don't care much for the _Long Goodbye_ flick, plus
which any
> detective story with a cat loses 10 points on the
hard-boiled scale. One
> possible reason for including the little critter
might be that it is the
> quintessential lonely, J. Alfred Prufrock, apartment
dweller pet. But I
> still don't buy it. Chandler may have been a cat
freak, but Marlowe
> wouldn't have kept a pet at all. Though he would
have tolerated a dog
> better. Anyway, there ain't no cat in the
book.
>
> James
>
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