Pulp (1972)

So far, I've not covered the noir pastiche. Two that come to mind are Gumshoe (1971), available on a 10/10 Sony DVD, and Pulp (1972) (a 10/10 M-G-M DVD). Despite its promising premise, Gumshoe is rather disappointing, thanks mainly to the obtrusively TV-style direction of Stephen Frears and the mistimed performance of Albert Finney. Aside from Janice Rule, Fulton Mackay and Billy Dean, the support players also fail to impress. Admittedly, the director occasionally uses his locations effectively, but on the whole, script, acting and direction are far too self-conscious to make the movie either involving or entertaining. Pulp, on the other hand, is everything Gumshoe is not. True, it does start a little uncertainly, but once Lionel Stander comes on stage and hero Michael Caine boards the bus with Dennis Price and Al Lettieri, the movie suddenly gets into stride. With the entrance of the wonderful Nadia Cassini (her first of only two English-language movies) and Mickey Rooney, our delight seems almost complete - only to be topped still further by Lizabeth Scott (her final film to date) and Leopoldo Trieste. If anything, both the sly humor and the edge-of-the-seat thrills increase as the film progresses.

Murder! Mystery! Michael Cain! Mickey Rooney! Lizabeth Scott, for goodness sake! How could this not be good.I'll tell you how.This tale of a pulp writer who gets involved in real murder features an unfocused story, a diffident Caine and a low budget that leads to the sort of artificial voice inserts and poor lighting you would expect from a TV movie of the era.To some extent, you could argue that it's not so much inept as it is representative of the early 70s, where directors like Robert Altman tossed out a lot of the cinematic gloss of earlier eras in favor of a messier, more "realistic" style. But the movie fails even in that regard compared to something like Altman's more watchable The Long Goodbye, which came out the following year.The beginning isn't terrible, offering a little humor, but as the movie wanders into its absurd story, it gets harder and harder to sit through. About two-thirds of the way through I gave up and read how it ended on wikipedia.I wouldn't recommend this for fans of pulp detective novels, but if you like that 1970s pseudo-naturalistic style you might find this more tolerable than I did.

Dryly irreverent, but sadly unfunny satire of detective movies, with stony-faced Michael Caine playing a British author of trashy crime stories traveling to the Mediterraean to assist in writing the memoirs of a would-be gangster; soon, he realizes he's being followed and his life is in danger. Caine narrates the proceedings with considerable sly wit and low-keyed sarcasm, but his actual performance is bereft of energy (Caine's shrill bursts of anger or frustration seem to come out of nowhere, and he connects with nobody on the screen). Other cast members (particularly Mickey Rooney, a silver-haired Lionel Stander, and Lizabeth Scott) do very well in colorfully outré roles, though Al Lettieri has an ungainly part as an apparent cross-dressing homosexual (Lettieri gets insulted without being able to defend himself, an unenviable position). Writer-director Mike Hodges has the germ of a good idea (satirize the detective movies of the 1940s without compromising the hard-boiled talk and milieu), but he hasn't a very sharp sense of humor. When a Bogart lookalike--asking a question about a falcon--is the best joke, what follows is anemic indeed. ** from ****

Mickey King is a jobbing writer, spitting out lurid gangster novels under various fake names with the usual mix of violence and sex making them sell. He is approached to ghost write for an unnamed Hollywood "legend" and, pocketing a nice advance for his troubles, he agrees. He travels by coach to meet his subject and meets several strange characters along the way. One of them ends up dead and King steps into the background to let the police find the body but keep himself out of it – however when the body seemingly disappears he is at a loss to explain it and unable to report it.A misfire this one but one that does have some reasonable ideas within it. The gimmick of king's narration versus what is happening and the simple view of his books versus the complex unfairness of reality is a nice idea but it does not translate into a good film. Those that really like the film (both of them) claim that this is not given enough credit because the majority of viewers don't "get" it but I beg to differ – I think it is rating "average" and remembered as such because of the film itself being just that – average. The gimmick wears thin when you realise that there is nothing else than a poorly delivered mystery. Towards the end there are themes and things of interest that vaguely start to drift out but by then it is too little too late. Comparing it to things like Chinatown is a joke and those that have suggested this have offered nothing by way of justification.The cast are mixed. Caine plays to play into his character and indeed he does get some moments of interest with his essentially harmless character, but as the material thins so does his performance. Rooney is interesting for playing an unusual character but offers little more than novelty value. The rest of the cast fill in around the edges in strange turns here and there. Malta as a setting is filmed with a real lack of interest and comes over as dry and colourless – a visual impression that does not help the material one little bit.Overall then an OK idea falls flat as it brings nothing else of interest to the room. Caine tires of it long before the end so it should be of no surprise if you the viewer do as well.