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The Cheap Detective (1978)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
23 June 1978 (USA) moreTagline:
Who dunnit? This time it's Neil Simon who's really dunnit. morePlot:
A combined parody of The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942): San Francisco, 1940, detectives, dames, documents, Nazis, a treasure... full summary | add synopsisPlot Keywords:
User Comments:
The Cheap Comedy Writer is more like it moreCast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Peter Falk | ... | Lou Peckinpaugh | |
| Ann-Margret | ... | Jezebel Dezire | |
| Eileen Brennan | ... | Betty DeBoop | |
| Sid Caesar | ... | Ezra Dezire | |
| Stockard Channing | ... | Bess | |
| James Coco | ... | Marcel | |
| Dom DeLuise | ... | Pepe Damascus | |
| Louise Fletcher | ... | Marlene DuChard | |
| John Houseman | ... | Jasper Blubber | |
| Madeline Kahn | ... | Mrs. Montenegro | |
| Fernando Lamas | ... | Paul DuChard | |
| Marsha Mason | ... | Georgia Merkle | |
| Phil Silvers | ... | Hoppy | |
| Abe Vigoda | ... | Sergeant Rizzuto | |
| Paul Williams | ... | Boy |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
92 minCountry:
USAColor:
Color (Metrocolor)Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 moreSound Mix:
MonoCertification:
Iceland:L | Australia:PG | Netherlands:AL | Singapore:PG | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | USA:PGFun Stuff
Trivia:
Neil Simon claimed that Warner Brothers had saved light fixtures and decorations from Humphrey Bogart's club in "Casablanca", allowing them to be reused as props in this movie's club, Nix Place. He also claimed some of the original waiters were reused as well! moreGoofs:
Anachronisms: The movie takes place in 1939, yet the song sung in the nightclub is 'La Vie En Rose' which was not written until 1946. moreQuotes:
Lou Peckinpaugh: You said on the phone last night, sir, that you thought that I could be of some service to you.Jezebel Dezire: Just how good *is* your service?
Lou Peckinpaugh: I try to satisfy.
Jezebel Dezire: Do you charge by the hour or by the satisfaction?
more
Soundtrack:
La Marseillaise moreFAQ
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Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for The Cheap Detective (1978)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
|---|---|
| Cut scenes -- and characters? | ccoutroulos |
| Jezebel Dezire | johnnyb94109 |
| I Swallowed My Gum | arnomation |
| Where's Phil Silvers? | tgibbs279 |
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I don't think it's imperative that one is a fan of old Bogart movies to watch The Cheap Detective, although it helps. This is Neil Simon's take on such noir classics as Casablanca, To Have And Have Not and The Maltese Falcon, with maybe a little Chinatown thrown in. I've never been much of a Neil Simon enthusiast; mostly, my complaint is that his characters lack depth while all he's really looking for is getting off a good line, a sort of Borscht Belt hunger for audience approval that went out of style about a million years ago. Here, the characters are ready-made, even if they are set up as caricatures for Simon's moderate wit, but even still it falls a little short.
To describe the plot would be almost pointless, since it vaguely resembles the set-up for every private detective movie ever made, good or bad ("of all the cheap joints in the world, she walked into mine" - you get the idea). From there it progresses, or stagnates, through a series of generally identifiable situations from old Bogart movies. I'd be lying if I didn't say there were some good laughs, here and there, either quickie one-liners or blatant knock-off scenes that film buffs will immediately pinpoint with the originals. I liked Dom DeLuise in the Peter Lorre role ("I'm swarthy, smelly, and I reek of cheap perfume") complaining that hotels will only let him stay half the night because of his body odor. John Houseman is great in the Sydney Greenstreet role, as is Madeline Kahn as the Faye Dunaway-ish sort-of-universal femme fatale with her phone book of alias names. On the other hand, Louise Fletcher as Bogie's love interest, with her plaintive pleas of "Louis" reminded me more of Hillary Brooke than Lauren Bacall or Ingrid Bergman, and Peter Falk's Bogart is really just so-so, not much better of an imitation than Don Adams'.
There are some ripe possibilties here for satire that Simon doesn't really take. For instance, if you were a comedy writer spoofing Chinatown, wouldn't you take a shot at the scene where Jack Nicholson gets his nose cut by Roman Polanski then walks around with a big bandage on his nose for half the movie. Instead, he resorts to the obvious and cliched. Neil Simon, to me, is not a true wit, in the same league as, say, Woody Allen. He's an OK, slightly above sitcom level gag writer who gets in just enough funny lines to woo the critics, and a whole lot of garbage to appeal to the masses. I'd say "The Cheap Detective" is about par for a Neil Simon script, and that's not saying much. 2 ** out of 4