I’d always assumed that the downstairs screen at Prince Charles Cinema would be a small poky basement affair.

So I wasn’t prepared for the splendour of the auditorium.

It’s got a good big screen and very high ceiling which gives the place a pleasingly cavernous feel.

There is a refreshing indie vibe to this cinema compared to the bland corporate chains that litter the rest of central London.

Clutching my plastic cup of excellent but pricey Trappiste beer, I settled into a comfortable velvet seat half-way back from the screen in eager anticipation of this evening’s film, director Robert Altman’s ‘The Long Goodbye’.

Before the film started, the pre-recorded message by John Waters, the ‘Pope of Trash’, commanding us to switch off our phones was very entertaining.

The fluidity of the opening scene is vintage Altman. Private eye Marlowe (Elliott Gould) and his pet cat weave their way through his apartment, Marlowe chuntering away to the cat in laconic fashion.

The steady flow of the scene and its mid-tempo pacing are sustained throughout the rest of this captivating slice of Marlowe’s gritty downbeat existence.

Elliot Gould makes a good Marlowe, cynical and world-weary but redeemed from out and out misanthropy by a wry, dry sense of humour.

He’s pretty true to the character of Marlowe in the Raymond Chandler novels, inhabiting a sleazy milieu which requires him to be thick-skinned and with low expectations of human behaviour.

Gould’s Marlowe meanders through the assignment he has taken on, bruised and battered by his encounters along the way but resilient enough to make it through. It’s an endearing performance.

Apart from Gould’s performance, it’s the soundtrack that sticks in my mind. Alternating between harsh jangling jazz and more mellow versions, it’s these hugely varied renditions of Johnny Mercer’s song ‘The Long Goodbye’ that set the mood in this wonderful melancholy film.

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