Pulp (1972)

the audience applauded

Simply A Masterpiece

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

So far, I've not covered the noir pastiche. Two that come to mind are Gumshoe (1971), available on a 10/10 Sony DVD, and Pulp (1972) (a 10/10 M-G-M DVD). Despite its promising premise, Gumshoe is rather disappointing, thanks mainly to the obtrusively TV-style direction of Stephen Frears and the mistimed performance of Albert Finney. Aside from Janice Rule, Fulton Mackay and Billy Dean, the support players also fail to impress. Admittedly, the director occasionally uses his locations effectively, but on the whole, script, acting and direction are far too self-conscious to make the movie either involving or entertaining. Pulp, on the other hand, is everything Gumshoe is not. True, it does start a little uncertainly, but once Lionel Stander comes on stage and hero Michael Caine boards the bus with Dennis Price and Al Lettieri, the movie suddenly gets into stride. With the entrance of the wonderful Nadia Cassini (her first of only two English-language movies) and Mickey Rooney, our delight seems almost complete - only to be topped still further by Lizabeth Scott (her final film to date) and Leopoldo Trieste. If anything, both the sly humor and the edge-of-the-seat thrills increase as the film progresses.

Michael Caine plays Mickey King--a guy who writes crap novels under a variety of pseudonyms. The titles of these books and his pen names are very funny--but also belie the fact that it is all sleazy crap. Out of the blue, Mickey gets an odd visit. Ben Dinuccio (Lionel Stander) has come to hire Mickey as a ghost writer for some famous man--but who that man is he will not say. All he's told is to go on some bus tour in Europe and wait for someone to contact him. Most of the trip is pretty boring for Mickey until someone he THINKS is his contact winds up dead. However, like a bad dime novel, the body disappears and everyone behaves as if nothing happened.Soon the man he's supposed to meet is revealed--Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney). Preston is apparently a rather famous but bad actor who has a lot of mobster friends--so many that he ended up getting deported. Now on an island in Europe, Preston holds court in front of a bunch of sycophants. These people don't seem to mind that Preston is a boorish, very crude jerk. Caine is sick of the guy after a while and tells him off--though right after this, an assassin kills Preston and tries to kill Mickey. Why? Who wants to kill Mickey and why? In many ways, "Pulp" flows like a bad old novel. Mickey narrates as if it's some sort of Mickey Spillane story and the story elements also, at times, seem right out of one of these stories. The problem is that when it's not, the story drags and drags. For a while I could enjoy it but it just kept going on and on and never seemed to pick up any steam. I wanted a big payoff but the best thing I got was seeing Mickey Rooney curse and act like a jerk. Overall, a misfire that started with an interesting idea but never developed into anything.

Mickey King is a talented man who writes pulp fiction under several pseudonyms. As the film starts, he is living abroad, after abandoning his native Britain. He gave his latest novel to be transcribed from the tapes he dictated. The agency where the job is being done employs ladies who have a field day listening to the Mickey's narrative as they put Mickey's words into the written format.A change occurs, when the writer is contacted to ghost write a sort of biography by a man that once was a Hollywwod star, Preston Gilbert, whose friendship to mafiosi men in America served to get him deported back to his birthplace, an island in the Mediterranean,off the Italian coast. But before Mickey can get to meet the man, he must endure an adventurous trip by motorcar that almost gets him killed.Director Mike Hodges, went to work right after his wonderful "Get Carter", wrote this comedy probably with Michael Caine, the star of his previous venture, in mind. Both director, and star, show the good rapport they shared as it shows in the finished product. Mr. Hodges was blessed with the casting of some Hollywood stars of the past, Mickey Rooney, Lizabeth Scott and raspy voiced, Lionel Stander. The result is an off beat comedy that has great moments, but does not work as well as Mr. Hodges intended.The best thing in the film is the voice over by Mr. Caine who is heard narrating some of the prose he writes for fans of his genre. Mickey Rooney's Preston was a funny recreation his own experience as a former film star. Others seen in supporting roles include Dennis Price and the excellent Leopoldo Trieste, but unfortunately, their participation is limited. The locations in Malta are captured by Ousama Rawi, the cinematographer. The incidental music is credited to George Martin.

Dryly irreverent, but sadly unfunny satire of detective movies, with stony-faced Michael Caine playing a British author of trashy crime stories traveling to the Mediterraean to assist in writing the memoirs of a would-be gangster; soon, he realizes he's being followed and his life is in danger. Caine narrates the proceedings with considerable sly wit and low-keyed sarcasm, but his actual performance is bereft of energy (Caine's shrill bursts of anger or frustration seem to come out of nowhere, and he connects with nobody on the screen). Other cast members (particularly Mickey Rooney, a silver-haired Lionel Stander, and Lizabeth Scott) do very well in colorfully outré roles, though Al Lettieri has an ungainly part as an apparent cross-dressing homosexual (Lettieri gets insulted without being able to defend himself, an unenviable position). Writer-director Mike Hodges has the germ of a good idea (satirize the detective movies of the 1940s without compromising the hard-boiled talk and milieu), but he hasn't a very sharp sense of humor. When a Bogart lookalike--asking a question about a falcon--is the best joke, what follows is anemic indeed. ** from ****