Pulp 1972
[voice-over] I am famous for such books as "My Gun is Long". I have many aliases. I am authors Susan Eager and Paul S. Coming. I am those and others. I am Paul Strong, Gary Rough and Les B. Han.
Michael Caine has made alot of films in his long career,he's also made alot of bloody shite ones too,but you can forgive him because in the good ones The Ipcress File and The Man who would be King he's bloody blow the bloody doors off brilliant.Pulp directed Mike (Flash Gordon) Hodges is a rather marvellous homage to gangster films,old Hollywood and Raymond Chandler and his ilk.Michael Caine is Mickey King a sleazy pulp novelist who glorifies in violent stories and smutty innuendo and sometimes goes under the psydenum "S. Odomy" and writes such novels as My Gun Is Long .He's Offered a lucrative ghost writing job by his publisher to write the biography of old time Hollywood star and wannabe gangster Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney). Rooney is marvellous as the egotistic and vane star who tries to impresss King with his stories of love life and mixing it with the underworld.Filmed on the island of Malta it has a very Euro feel to it but still has that Noir flavour with its story of revenge and a secret that has been uncovered.King has to navigate thru many an eccentric character including Al Lettieri as Miller who may or may not be a cross dressing hitman,Dennis Price doing his usual camp party piece while reciting Alice in Wonderland, Lionel Stander as Ben Dinuccio Rooneys henchman and of course Max from Hart to Hart and Robert Sacchi who is the man with bogeys face.This is by no means a proper Noir film,but it does give plenty of nods to the whole pulp detective genre and stories, especially with Caine's voice over that gives the viewer an insight into the character's thought's. Its a very witty film with plenty of oddball characters and Mike Hodges balances comedy with this great detective thriller, would make a great double bill with the film Gumshoe..
out of 5