In his debut film, director Stephen Frears hands
out a delightful pastiche of the hard-boiled dicks of Hollywood's Golden Age.
It is an intriguing blend of comedy and the real thing as a detective unravels
a plan to smuggle guns to Africa. Or is the whole thing the mad fantasy of
a man on the brink of a failing life who has read Hammett too often - on
his sixth reading of The Thin Man - and wishes he had written The Maltese
Falcon. You can interpret it either way. If it had been shot in black and
white it would have been pure noir but being shot in bright color you have
to think twice. But it doesn't really matter. It is a lovely tribute and
a clever little mystery with Albert Finney giving a terrific performance
as a wanna-be Sam Spade who finds himself neck deep in danger armed with
a gun and a never-ending stream of wisecracks. He is our narrator as per
1940's noir.
Finney is Eddie Ginley, a man with a fast patter and a few dreams that he
relates to his psychiatrist - to have written The Maltese Falcon, to
have sung Blue Suede Shoes and to do stand-up in Vegas. At 31 years old stuck
in Liverpool he is too late for the first two and a long ways from the third.
Right now he calls out bingo numbers and MC's at a working person's club.
His small cramped apartment is the thing of dreams. If cockroaches dream.
On a whim he decides to put an ad into the paper for detective services. To
his surprise he gets a call from someone telling him to go to a hotel room.
He does. A fat man not named Gutman is sitting in a chair watching a black
and white movie (Crawford and Holiday in Born Yesterday) with his back to
him in the dark room. He says pick up that package. That is all you need
to know.
Ginley later discovers a thousand pounds, a gun and picture of a woman inside
with her name and address on it. The intent seems clear. To kill the woman.
He initially thinks it is a joke played on him by his friends - but soon realizes
he is way over his head and has no idea what is going on. He wants out. But
it is too late. The guy (Fulton MacKay) who the package was meant for wants
his thousand pounds or a piece of flesh. Ginley flounders around - visits
the girl - gets beaten up - gets threatened - loses his job at Bingo - and
it may be that his brother (Frank Finlay) and his ex-girlfriend (Billie Whitelaw)
and now wife of his brother are somehow involved. A trip to a shady bookstore
in London with a bespectacled female receptionist is clearly meant to remind
us of The Big Sleep.
All along Ginley keeps up the internal and external patter and quick come-backs
- sometimes breaking into Bogart's speech patterns. The plot is as confusing
as The Big Sleep on Quaaludes as well which may be intentional. None of it
really holds together and heroin enters the picture. Suddenly Ginley is as
tough and competent as Bogart in his trench coat. Which takes me back to the
chance that this is all a fantasy - maybe a heroin dream. Was there ever really
a dead man in his apartment? I like the possibility anyways. Finney
is just terrific but so is everyone else with a standout performance from
Fulton MacKay.
I don't know if it was the times or that Ginley was working class
Liverpudlian or that Frears thought it was a good idea - but there are some
really racist remarks made by Ginley that smack you in the face now and leave
a rancid taste in your mouth. Maybe not back in 1971. It just comes
as such a surprise as it would not if a character was a slave owner or a
member of the Trump Cult. It begs the question of whether in today's cinema
racist language can be used if the character is a racist or whether you just
can't do that any more. Worthy of mention also is the score. While watching
I thought they were using music from various old films with the swelling
orchestral sound - but the music is original and comes from Andrew Lloyd
Webber, a year after Jesus Christ Superstar. It is terrific.
