I once ordered a narrow double shot of Aquavit, a kind of Scandinavian liqueur. I didn’t much care for the taste (i.e., black licorice) so that was all she wrote.
But the reason I ordered it was because Sterling Hayden’s Roger Wade kept a chilled bottle of the stuff in The Long Goodbye (‘74), and during a chat at his Malibu beach house offered a glass of it to Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe.
“Okay, that’s it,” I muttered in my 13th row seat at the Aero. “I’m ordering Acqavit the next time I’m in a bar.
Marlowe wasn’t an aquavit drinker himself — he merely told Wade he would “have whatever you’re havin’” out of politeness. Wade almost hugged Marlowe for that. Wade: “Well, God love ya…so many snooties say when I ask what they want, they say ‘I’ll have some of this and a little bit of that and a twist of lemon.”
In Marlowe’s own Hollywood habitat, the shadowy, down-at-the-heels bar where they take messages for him, he orders Canadian Club and ginger ale on the rocks. Plus he chain-smokes unfiltered cigarettes (Camels or Lucky Strikes or Pall Malls) — Marlowe would never touch any kind of filtered smoke…Parliament, Kent, Benson & Hedges, L & M…God forbid!
Anyway on the occasion of this, Gould’s 85th birthday, I felt obliged to point out the particulars to Kim Morgan, a Long Goodbye fan from way back.
