Movie Details
| Title: | The Cheap Detective | |
| Director: | Robert Moore | |
| Year: | 1978 | |
| Genre: | Comedy | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 06.15.07 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Murder by Death
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 06.15.07 | Paramount | I don't really like how the Paramount insists on changing the play order for double features on the second night even when they're clear sequels. Who wants to watch After the Thin Man right before The Thin Man? But in this case, I actually didn't mind because this movie was clearly not as good as Murder by Death so it was nice to watch this knowing I was saving the best for last. It's a comedy with Peter Falk playing the Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe archetype and schticking through send-ups of Casablanca, Big Sleep, Maltese Falcon, and all those other Bogart and private eye noirs. While it was funny seeing Dom DeLuise play Peter Lorre and John Houseman play Sydney Greenstreet and James Coco play Claude Rains, the premise isn't quite enough to stay interesting the whole way through for me, and much of the humor comes from gaggy one-liners and just-plain-dumb Airplane-esque puns. Probably my favorite part was seeing Madeline Khan trying to pretend like she doesn't know Falk's character every time she sees him. I didn't really go for her changing name gag but her looks as she's trying to feign not knowing him made me chuckle. |
