Peeper
Director:
Peter
Hyams
Year: 1975
Rating: 5.5
The eternal question arises here; can a noir
private eye be English. The two don't really feel compatible. Like having
crumpets with your highball. It was tried by Albert Finney in Gumshoe in
1971 and though that is a good film, it is a noir pastiche as much as anything.
I like my noir straight like I do my orange juice and much of what is termed
neo-noir is diluted with parody. The Black Bird from the same year as this
still causes me indigestion. But if you are going to make a comedy-noir with
an Englishman, you could do much worse than Michael Caine. In Los Angeles.
Caine is great in anything non shark related. It is probably a disservice
to this film to have the opening credits read by a man in the shadows imitating
Bogart or perhaps Sam Spade. This is no Maltese Falcon though it has hints
of The Big Sleep.
Caine is Tucker with the very un-noir first
name of Leslie. He moved to America after the war to look for success and
Betty Grable. Neither were in the phone book. He has a grubby office in a
grubby business and like all P.I.s in movies is down to wooden nickels. It
is usually a long-legged blonde who walks into their office spelling trouble,
but he gets a sweaty Michael Constantine who wants him to look for the daughter
he placed in an orphanage thirty years ago. He wants to give her money. And
then the plot gets as confusing as hell. What's a noir without it.
The wealthy family with two daughters (Natalie
Wood and Kitty Win) enter into the plot. Neither daughter though tries to
sit on his lap while he is standing. There is a suspicious uncle (Thayer
David) who might be in the blackmail business, a dotty mother with loads
of money and an insulting tone. Plus, two incompetent thugs after the money.
It is a mess that seems to lose interest in the plot as it goes along. Or
maybe that was me. There is some clever faux Chandler dialogue from Caine
as the narrator and Wood is comfortably appealing. Directed by Peter Hyams
still early in his career.
