Sending down the dames, sending up the movies

Press, 6 November 1978, Page 12

Sending down the dames, sending up the movies

The detective points his I gun at a ringing telephone, ; takes an already-poured whisky from his drawer, talks througs his teeth, tells everyone not to play him I for a sucker. I Enter beautiful dames I with guilty secrets and plunging necklines. Evil I Nazis trying to foil the. French underground. Twistiing trails of deceit' and: 'double-talk. Sound familiar? Do you : sit up nights, wiping sleep from your eyes to catch a late showing of “The Maltese . Falcon’’ or “Casablanca”? I If you do — even if . you don’t "The Cheap Detective,” now at. the Westend, is one of those slap-dash, never mind the bad jokes comedies it would be a shame to miss., Neil Simon, of “The Odd' Couple” and “The Goodbye i Girl,” pasted together this: spoof of the private eye j film. He has much the same! haphazard way with jokes j as Woody Allen and Mel! :Brooks, pitching them past: Iso fast you can hardly see: : straight. Never mind if one falls iflat. three more whiz along' | to take their place. A lot of; i movies are called hovvlarious ■ I and a real laff riot, and; :most aren’t. This one tries; jso hard to be both, you : can't help liking it.

Essentially, it is Sam: Spade seen from a cock-eyed I angle, with many sets. almost replicas of those ini the old film. Tossed into the! muddle are. big chunks of Bogart and Bergman in the total! y-unrelated “Casablanca.” The two stories are woven together in a nonsensical way that seems to ’work, if you don’t think! ; about it too much. Peter Falk as 80-I:

gart/Spade/Rick wouldn’t be' able to carry it alone, and doesn’t have to — not with all the women floating in and out of his life. Not with Ann-Margaret, Louise Fletcher, Stockard Channing, Madeline Kahn and more keeping- him relentlessly a-twitter. Private eyes are supposed to kiss off the bad broads and wink goodbye to their secretaries at the end. Not in this rendition Falk ends up with all of them. Corpses are supposed toj fall like swatted flies in detective movies. Not here. They stand, sit and crouch

| where shot, immobile, tiny bullet holes the only clue to :their fate. i “We’ve got three corpses ias cold as yesterday’s toast, and the fourth ready to pop up,” says a cop. From that start, the sight gags, running gags and jokes almost fall over each other in their rush to get to the denouement. If every line isn’t a joke, every other line lis. “Don’t tell me any more lies,” Falk tells a woman: who changes, her name every! few seconds. She keeps on ; lying. One of the sinister crooks is “swarthy, greasy and! wears cheap perfume.” His: enemies can’t get past the: stink. Another is “an invidiously dangerous tub of lard.”

Some of the lines are [I taken directly from the old ‘! movies, but it doesn’t matter Jif you have never seen the j. originals. They fit in fine J with all the japery. The whole mess is filled; /; appropriately with swirling! . fog, dark alleyways, neon :signs, black piano players! jiwho can’t help playing “Jee..pers Creepers” despite the; " heartache it will cause. Daffy Duck and the near-! , sighted' Mr Magoo add to! ithe merrriment, along with! >|the thoughts of an aging! . I jogger in Central Park. . Here's to the movies, kid. i Play it again. Westend.

AT THE CINEMA Stan Darling