Gumshoe (1971)

the audience applauded

Best movie ever!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I recently saw this film again for the first time since it came out, on a big screen, and had an opportunity to chat a bit with Steve Frears about it. It stands up very well to the passage of time, but the whiff of sixties Britain coming from the screen is very strong. I think we had all forgotten quite how grotty things were back then. People were still putting coins in gas meters and thinking that chow mein was Chinese food. So GUMSHOE has now become period. Why, I never. But there it is, it has joined Powell and Loy in the cabinet of yesteryear. And so it is all the more appropriate that in this film, Albert Finney sits reading a propped up paperback copy of Dash Hammett's THE THIN MAN as he eats his breakfast cereal. Where is Asta the dog? Well, now, down to cases, and I mean criminal cases. Albert Finney is a Walter Mitty fantasist who refuses to work in his brother's prosperous export business and instead lives on the dole, having forfeited the love of a good (?) woman played by Billie Whitelaw, who married his brother instead (an insidious Frank Finlay who is up to no good). But wait. Whitelaw keeps coming around and professing undying love for Albert. What is going on? She wants to stay overnight but asks where could she sleep, as Albert sleeps in a narrow cot. He says she could always sleep in the bath tub. Perhaps she was one of those gals of whom a chap could say: 'She'd scrub up nicely.' Meanwhile, Albert, under the influence of Humphrey Bogart (of whom he does imitations), and frenzied with love for THE MALTESE FALCON, puts an ad in the Liverpool paper (yes, he is a Liverpudlian) saying his name is Sam Spade and he is a private eye but will not accept divorce work. He is immediately contacted by 'the Fat Man', given a thousand pounds (a lot of money in those days), a photo of a woman, and a gun. It is a curious sort of gun, a .38 calibre revolver with only five chambers. There may be some numerological significance in this lack of a sixth chamber, especially as later in the film Aleister Crowley's face stares at us from the wall of the Atlantis Bookshop in London as if he knows what happened to the missing chamber. And for those of you who know Museum Street, you will be aware that there not only was a real Atlantis Bookshop, but it is still there. I don't like it because I don't like black magic. Albert, being a very kind-hearted person, does not understand that he is meant to kill the girl in the photo, who is a scholar at the University of Liverpool (a sinister place, home of Ian Shaw, who only leaves his coffin after midnight). So he looks her up and chats her up. Albert Finney plays this weird, innocent and intrepid character to perfection. His ability to pull it off means that the film works. It would have been so easy for a film like this walking the tightrope of comedy and murder to fail. Albert could have gone plop as he fell off the wire. But no, he is too sure-footed for that. It is a miracle that a first-time director could succeed in such a hazardous enterprise. But then Frears was well apprenticed under Karel Reisz on MORGAN: A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT, which was an even more bizarre mixture of comedy and tragedy, starring David Warner (who once pushed my friend Lucy Saroyan down the stairs, for which I have never forgiven him). There is a really serious criminal enterprise going on, of which Albert becomes dimly aware, assisted by the fact that people keep getting killed, so as one would notice. His brother is shipping guns in crates marked 'gardening tools' to Mozambique. Now, who would do a thing like that? Mozambique is so yesterday. But then, this is a period film, and there were different rebels then. The ice maiden Janice Rule (who six years later would be the ominous non-speaking third woman in Altman's 3 WOMEN) sends a chill down Albert's spine as she tries to deal with him. But even the most evil schemers can get nowhere with a Liverpool Prince Myshkin. Albert decides to find out what is going on, as it becomes clear that heroin is the game. His encounter with a young and sensual Maureen Lipman at the Atlantis Bookshop is a treat, as she assures him that the best time to see her is just after closing time, as 'I blossom in the evenings.' But the best scene in the film is when Albert encounters the young Wendy Richard and they exchange machine-gun rapid one-liners, he doing his very best Bogart, and she maintaining the most perfect taunting insouciance. I praised this scene to Frears and he agreed that she was 'absolutely brilliant', and it became clear that he loved the result of it very dearly indeed. Frears is very self-effacing and finds it hard to be praised. He looked pretty dazed that everybody still liked GUMSHOE all these years and 22 feature films later. But it is a gem.

Obviously, Fans of Film-Noir, Chandler, Hammett, and the Detective Movies of the Forties will Enjoy this Homage More than Casual Movie Goers. Directorial Debut for Stephen Frears, it Features a Fine Fast Talking Performance from Albert Finney as the Titular Character.Not Really a Detective, He Fancies Himself in the Role as He is Obsessed with Bogart and the Retro Pulp Fiction of a Genre that was Decades Old Even in the Early Seventies. It's a Complicated Yet Simple Plot of a Girl, a Gun, and Money.The Highlight is Finney's Fondness for Talking Like Bogart and Machine Gunning Dialog that is so Vibrant One can Hardly Keep Up. There is a Breezy Take on All of this that Changes Tones from Comedic Zingers to Strong Violence.Overall, a Cult Movie that is Highly Recommended for its Target Audience. It's Never Going to Attain Mainstream Status, its Just too Quirky. That's the Charm.

Even though he co-wrote the screenplay for "The Big Sleep," William Faulkner reportedly admitted that he never understood the plot. It would have been fun to turn him loose on "Gumshoe" which by comparison makes "The Big Sleep" seem like an exercise in clarity. Albert Finney stars as a bingo caller and aspiring comic who advertises himself as a private eye. Lured to a hotel room, he's handed a parcel containing a thousand pounds, a gun and some photos. Why? He has no idea and neither does the audience. But it does lead to an encounter with a self-styled hit man and a dead body in his bedroom. Why? Again, no one has a clue. Eventually, the mystery centers on a drug-addicted fat man, Finney's obnoxious brother played by Frank Finlayson, shipments of arms to Africa and a weird book store which is managed either by a nymphet or a thug. Throughout the confusion, much to his credit, Finney acts as if it all makes sense. In fact, his performance is thoroughly entertaining. Which "Gumshoe" would be if it was only comprehensible.

Stephen Frears was the ideal choice to direct this quirky little gem. His first film before a prestigious career in television and then in Hollywood shows off his sensitivity, compassion and efficency as a film maker beautifully. Albert Finney gives an astounding performance as our hero, Eddie Ginley, whose life on the surface is far from glamorous. An unemployed Liverpudlian who gets by as a bingo caller and wannabe comic, he is loved by everyone except his repulsive brother William (Frank Finlay) and has recently had to suffer his girlfriend (Billie Whitelaw) leaving him and marrying the sinister William. Eddie however has a boyish love for film noir, the stories of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, and the music of Elvis. When he decides to advertise his services as a private detective, he finds himself up to his neck in murder, drug dealing and South African politics! Finney manages both a weathered Scouse accent and a remarkable impression of Bogart incredibly. He is a lovable character, excellently written and played, who could have sustained a whole series of films. Billie Whitelaw is the Lauren Bacall style femme fatale, and the outsanding Janice Rule the seductive villainess. A fine array of British character actors like Bill Dean, Fulton Mackay and George Innes sprinkle the whole film with colour and eccentricity. The in-jokes for fans of Bogart films are spot-on but anyone can enjoy this film, with some superb one liners and very touching moments. But the whole film is stolen fair and square by the soundtrack, courtesy of Andrew Lloyd Webber of all people! From fifties style rockers, to pensive strings to huge, grandiose thirties style epic themes, the score is a delight. The finest moment is suely Eddie's outwitting of the irreplaceable Fulton MacKay on a tube train. Writer Neville Smith (who plays a small role) showed a less humourous approach to a loner's hero worship of his idols in his 1979 tv play Long Distance Information, in which he played the lead character, Christian, an Elvis obsessed DJ who is working on the night of the King's death. Gumshoe is not really a comedy though, but a pastiche, affectionate and observant. It does have it's dark moments though, including a heroin suicide and a couple of moments of violence. And like any good Raymond Chandler, the plot is unbelievably complicated and the least important element!