Disturbing yet enthralling

Awesome Movie

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Neil Simon and director Robert Moore followed up their 1976 triumph Murder by Death with an on-target jab at the film noir genre and of the work of Humphrey Bogart in particular with The Cheap Detective, a lavishly produced comedy that takes place in 1940's San Francisco and involves treasure, Nazis and other varied mysteries encountered by private eye Lou Peckinpaugh (Peter Falk), who is basically just a retread of Falk's character in Murder by Death but no one channels Bogart better than Falk and film audiences ate it up, making it one of 1978's biggest hits.Needless to say, Falk has the Bogart thing down to a science and, like Murder by Death, he is backed up by an impressive supporting cast including Eileen Brennan, Ann-Margret, Sid Ceasar, Dom DeLuise, Stockard Channing, Madeline Kahn, James Coco, Phil Silvers, John Houseman, and, of course, Mrs. Neil Simon at the time, Marsha Mason.Simon's screenplay for The Cheap Detective is a little more complex than Murder by Death, but Moore mounts it on a lavish canvas and draws performances from the all-star cast that don't just entertain, they serve the story. But be assured that Simon cements his position as king of the cinematic one-liner and this very talented cast and director deliver the goods.

It's 1939 in fictitious city of San Francisco. Lou Peckinpaugh (Peter Falk) is a private detective whose partner Floyd is killed in a mass shooting. He is immediately the prime suspect for having a fling with Floyd's wife Georgia Merkle (Marsha Mason). He gets a call from the mysterious Denise Montenegro and various other names (Madeline Kahn). He gets a different call from Pepe Damascus (Dom DeLuise) leading to a Casablanca-like club where Betty DeBoop (Eileen Brennan) is singing. Pepe wants to hire him to find an object. Paul (Fernando Lamas) and Marlene DuChard (Louise Fletcher) are hounded freedom fighters who insist on starting a 2 star french restaurant in Oakland.The Neil Simon dialog is so sharp that it goes in a loop. He's trying to spoof various noir movies by making the characters weirder. However he's not able to nail the jokes. It's not his style to do the ridiculous spoofs. These jokes don't make one laugh as much as one understands them intellectually. There are also a lot of great actors in this and most of them are not natural comedians. It doesn't work.

If this is what some reviewers consider great writing and acting, my cat has a script you should read. A seventh grader with spell check coulda written this script. There wasn't a single funny line in it.Hey, I love Peter Falk, and when you put him together with Sid Caesar and the rest, it shoulda been a blockbuster. Maybe in 1968 this would have been considered funny, in 1958 it would have been considered daring, but by 1978 it seems hopelessly hackneyed.Yeah, I get it, I get it, it's a spoof of all those Bogey films, but with all the subtlety of a rubber sledgehammer. How about something clever, like vamping on Peter Lorre's walking stick, or getting caught in the rain, or what Bogey really wanted to do in that used book store with the clerk? If you insist on watching this, I suggest you put on a pot of strong, black coffee. You're going to need it.

There are lots of stars in this film and all are very funny.Lots of women and they all are attracted to Peter Falk, the Cheap detective whose partner was murdered.The scenes in the beginning are very funny. 5 people are killed and they all die in the position they were in when it happened and they all are shot in the head. Their eyes were open as if they were still alive and if they were reading the paper or drinking that is the position they died in with the glass or paper still in their hand.I would have rated it higher there was no swearing accept for a minor word like "ass" no sexual stuff either. One hour and 26 minutes into the film Louise Fletcher who plays Fernando Lamas' wife tell Peter Falk to "give him the God D mn papers"- to her husband.This I found very offensive so I rated it low. There was no reason for swearing God's name. The movie was about 1 hr 32 minutes it was almost over and quite funny, I won't watch it again unless I could remove those few minutes in the film.