This film confounded those who were expecting a performance from Caine that echoed the 'hard man of few words' character which he mastered in Get Carter only one year before Pulp. Some saw it as playing his recent success for laughs, but when viewed separate from Get Carter, the jokes still stand up. The sense of farce builds and the sinister setting and plot twists move the story along without breaking the essential flow. Much of the comedy comes from well delivered one liners parodying the pulp novelist, so often seen today but done well for the first time in this film, but the understated "black slapstick" and the stoic character portrayed by Caine have much comedic value. The main reason this film is little known now is that it never quite fit into a genre very well. The only advice I can offer is to watch the film without Caine preconceptions and let the laughs come.
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