Hair: Yes
Best line (narrated): "Her tongue went deep. It was alive, wet and very shocking. I had visions of refuelling in space."
Before starting, let us state something. As far as we are concerned, this film has the definitive 70s Caine look in it. DEFINITIVE. Right?
That out of the way, we can move on.
Pulp - the same team that brought us Get Carter, that rightly lauded classic, goes further into the rabbit hole and is a love letter to pulp crime fiction as a whole, rather than a pulp crime novel turned into a film.
Caine plays Mickey King, a writer of pulp novels under a variety of pen names, living in Malta and generally trying to get on with his mid life crisis, gets an assignment to ghost write an autobiography of a retired film star (Mickey Rooney), who was rumoured to have had mob connections back in the day.
Having decided to take this assignment (Caine turn down cash? I mean really?) he then finds that life begins to imitate his fiction in ways he never could have expected, when people start turning up dead around him and a long buried mystery is uncovered.
Now, this film has everything going for it - people, place, time, fashion, the lot. But, and this is the third time I've seen it, it just doesn't really hang together right.
Frustrating as this is a film that we should love here at Fortress Mickelwhite, being lovers of sunny locales, early 70s fashions, pulp novels of all creeds and euro crime, but it just doesn't happen.
Of course, that doesn't mean we won't be watching it again in future, attempting to unlock it and love it. Oh no.
Suspicion about this lies in the tone of the film. For the first 20 mins or so, its a very very broad slapstick comedy and puts you in this mood, then the mystery continues in a similar tone, lowered a little and really, the final crime when revealed is one that's so brutal and nasty that it just doesn't sit with the preceding knockabout and carved ham that went before it.
A shame, but it is what it is. Had so much going for it (Caines narration is spot on perfect), but fumbles it towards the end and doesn't recover.
However, it does recover some points for the frankly gorgeous décor on display. Watching the film to soak up some of that is probably worthwhile in itself.
Minutae:
1: Amongst the various characters that appear, a beautifully waspish Dennis Price turns up, quoting Alice in Wonderland and being a true example to us all.
Now Dennis would have been deep into the bottle at this point, with Pulp coming between Tower of Evil (yes!) and a Jess Franco, but he still knows how to steal a scene dammit.
(note bloody mary)
Dennis - I would say dearly missed, but to be honest, you tend to crop up in at least one film a week that I watch.
2: The book titles and author names.
Very well done, the pastiche of pulp conventions from the era is spot on.
3: Dignity shredding dance breakout
Of course, this is before the 1980s when, as we all know, our Mike had no dignity at all in films. (See: just about any film tagged 1980s on this blog)
Outfit of the film: Well, he only wears one, but its a cracker.
I once strolled through Florence dressed like this, except my white suit has a thin navy pinstripe and I was wearing a hat.
In my head, I looked like this (or Klaus in Fitzcarraldo), but in reality I looked a right tosser.
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