Peter Falk Channels Bogie in Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective

A befuddled Lou Peckinpah.

Following the success of his romantic comedy The Goodbye Girl (1977), Neil Simon returned to the zany spoof formula of Murder By Death (1976). Indeed, The Cheap Detective could have been a sequel to Murder By Death with Peter Falk reprising his role of Sam Diamond--a knock-off of Bogart's Sam Spade. Instead, Falk plays Lou Peckinpah, a 1930s hardboiled detective--who is still a knock-off of Bogart's Sam Spade.

Set in San Francisco, the movie kicks off with the discovery of six corpses in a seedy hotel. One of the victims is Floyd Merkle, the partner of private eye Lou Peckinpah. The police target Lou as their primary suspect since he had been having a nine-year affair with Floyd's wife. That prompts Lou to tackle the case and prove his innocence. 

Madeline Kahn.

He receives a visit from a mysterious woman (Madeline Kahn) who claims to have knowledge of Floyd's death. However, she will help Lou only if he can recover twelve stolen diamonds, each valued at over $250,000. Meanwhile, Lou encounters his former flame, Marlene DuChard (Louise Fletcher), whose war hero husband wants to establish a French restaurant in Oakland against the Nazis' wishes.

Yes, The Cheap Detective is essentially a spoof of The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Its plot is serviceable, but Simon clearly didn't put much effort into it. Instead, he chose to focus on "the funny"--packing his comedy with one-liners, wacky situations, and relying on an engaging cast. An example is the scene in which Floyd's widow (Marsha Mason) comes to see Lou after her husband's murder. Lou asks her: "Are you sure the police didn't follow you here?" She replies: "I'm positive. They came with me." Three police detectives then emerge from two doors behind her. It's the kind of silly--but funny--gag that would be employed two years later in Airplane! (1980).

DeLuise channeling Lorre.

The cast has grand fun playing parodies of famous movie characters from The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. John Houseman channels Sydney Greenstreet's Kasper Gutman as Jasper Blubber and Fernando Lamas does a fine Paul Henreid impersonation as Marlene's husband. However, the standout performances belong to Madeline Kahn as a Mary Astor-like femme fatale and Dom DeLuise imitating Peter Lorre. Peter Falk serves as the film's straight man, typically setting up the funny scenes for his co-stars.

As with the later Airplane! and Naked Gun movies, the gags are plentiful with more hits than misses. For this reason, I found The Cheap Detective to be funnier than the slower-paced Murder By Death. I suspect I'm in the minority, though, as Murder By Death seems to be fondly remembered by movie fans whereas The Cheap Detective has been sadly neglected. If you've never seen it--or if it's just been awhile--Neil Simon's 1978 comedy is definitely worth a look.

Peter Sellers and Neil Simon? It's After the Fox!

The Fox masquerades as a director.

Imagine Peter Sellers starring in a comedy written by Neil Simon and directed by Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves)! A talented trio, to be sure--but also a seemingly unlikely one. And yet they teamed up in 1966 to make the Italian comedy After the Fox.

It's almost two movies in one, with the first half being devoted to the life of master criminal Aldo Vanucci--better known as The Fox. After a clever escape from prison, Vanucci tries to make amends with his mother and teenage sister (Britt Ekland). Mother Vanucci is upset that her son spends all his time in prison without taking care of his dear mother. Meanwhile, Vanucci fears that his sister Gina has become a streetwalker. Actually, she's just trying to break into the movies! With the police hot on his trail, the master criminal indulges in a lot of disguises and accents (which plays to Peter Sellers' strength).

After the Fox goes off in a different direction when a fellow thief contacts Vanucci and wants him to smuggle 300 bars of gold bullion into Italy. Vanucci hatches a brilliant idea: He will make a movie and incorporate the unloading of the gold into the plot. He convinces a fading American actor (Victor Mature) to star in The Gold of Cairo and casts Gina as the female lead.

Victor Mature as an aging star.

While the first half of After the Fox is mildly amusing, the second half evolves into a sharp satire of the movie business. Victor Mature is splendid as Tony Powell, a has-been movie star who spurns an offer to play a 64-year-old sheriff in a Western because the character is too old. When his agent (Martin Balsam) points out that Tony is in his sixties, the actor exclaims: "I don't want to be sixty, I want to be forty!"

Sellers also excels as the thief playing the part of a movie director. Tossing around terms like neorealism, he appeals to Tony's vanity as well as an entire village's desire to be immortalized in a movie. His initial plan is to just film the unloading of the gold from the ship. However, when the ship's arrival is delayed, he has to start shooting a motion picture. With no script, he decides to make a movie about two beautiful people doing nothing. As he explains to Tony: "We have a great opportunity to make a wonderful comment about the lack of communication in our society." It's a concept that Tony thinks is brilliant (as does a film critic in a later scene).

A dark-haired Britt Ekland as Gina.

One suspects that Neil Simon's intent was to satirize the artistic filmmakers who dominated international cinema in the 1960s, such as Godard, Renais, and Antonioni. It was Simon's first screenplay after making a splash on Broadway with Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple. De Sica insisted that Simon work with his frequent collaborator Cesare Zavattini. The result is that--whether intentional or not--Sellers' director seems to be a larger-than-life portrait of De Sica. I think that's one of the reason that After the Fox has acquired a cult reputation over the years.

Of course, it also has a ridiculous--but mind-numbingly catchy--title tune written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The Hollies and Peter Sellers perform it over the credits and it start with these lyrics:
    Who is the fox?
    (I am the fox)
    Who are you?
    (I am me)
    Who is me?
    (Me is a thief)
    You'll bring your poor, poor mother grief.

Incidentally, Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland were married when they made After the Fox. He insisted that she be cast as Vanucci's sister Gina. It was the second of three movies starring the couple, with the others being Carol for Another Christmas (1964) and The Bobo (1967). They divorced in 1968 after a four-year marriage that produced a daughter named Victoria.

Neil Simon's Murder By Death

Peter Falk as Sam Diamond.

Wealthy eccentric Lionel Twain has invited the world's six greatest detectives to his isolated mansion for "dinner and murder." Once his guests have been assembled, Twain reveals that a murder will take place at midnight and the first detective to unveil the killer will receive $1,000,000.

That's the premise for Neil Simon's Murder By Death (1976), a modestly amusing comedy that pays homage to some of literature's most famous detectives. Of course, the names and the characters have been tweaked for comedic purposes. Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot has become Milo Perrier (James Coco) and her Miss Marple transformed into Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester). Likewise, Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles have been turned into private eye Sam Diamond (Peter Falk) and socialites Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven and Maggie Smith). Finally, there's Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers), a thinly-veiled version of Earl Derr Bigger's Charlie Chan.

Simon's affection for these characters and the mystery genre is apparent throughout Murder By Death. However, that's not to say that he's above poking fun at the detectives' best known traits. For example, Twain constantly expresses irritation at Sidney Wang's broken English and his wise sayings ("Conversation like television set on honeymoon--unnecessary"). Simon also delights to sending up some of the mystery genre's best-known conventions, such as revealing new information just before the culprit is unmasked.

Peter Sellers as Sidney Wang.

Simon's script for Murder By Death is filled with one-liners and sight gags. His strategy is one of quantity over quality, so that when a funny line falls flat, there's another one--hopefully more amusing--on the way. No topic is off limits, with Simon spinning jokes about Asian stereotypes, blindness, and gay people. Indeed, in this day of increased political awareness, one can envision Murder By Death being labeled as controversial  (especially for Sellers' portrayal of an Asian character).

The all-star cast appears to be having a grand time, especially Alec Guinness as the blind (or is he?) butler. The best detective portrayal belongs to James Coco, who would have made a fine Poirot in a serious mystery (with less emphasis on eating!). Neil Simon liked Peter Falk's hard-boiled private eye so well that he wrote The Cheap Detective (1978), a follow-up starring Falk in a similar role and with his Murder By Death co-stars James Coco and Eileen Brennan.

Alec Guinness as the butler.

There are multiple versions of Murder By Death due to outtakes being reinserted to increase its running time for broadcast television. The additional scenes include an appearance by Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson at the end of the film.

In an interview on one of the DVDs, Neil Simon expressed his admiration for Alec Guinness. During a break on the set, he said that Guinness was reading a script called Star Wars: "I said 'What's that about, Alec?' He said 'The future. Good stuff, I think. We'll see.'"

Seven Things to Know About Neil Simon

1. In a 1979 interview in Playboy, Neil Simon noted: "There are two million interesting people in New York and only seventy-eight in Los Angeles."

2. Simon and Stephen Sondheim once considered collaborating on a musical version of The Front Page. Simon wrote in his memoir The Play Goes On: "The one thing you look for in a musical is why people actually sing songs, a piece of advice that Stephen Sondheim had given me years earlier when I suggested that he and I do a musical version of The Front Page...'(It's) a great play, said Stephen, but why do they sing?' I looked him right in the eye and said, 'I haven't the slightest idea--except that you write such incredible songs.' 'Not without good reason,' said Stephen wisely, and instead of writing with him, I decided to enjoy just listening to everything he wrote without me getting in his way."

3. One of Neil Simon's least successful plays was The Gingerbread Lady (1970), which starred Maureen Stapleton as an alcoholic actress. Although Stapleton won a Tony for Best Actress, the play's original run was just over five months. Ten years later, Simon adapted it for the screen as Only When I Laugh, which earned Oscar nominations for his then-wife Marsha Mason (Best Actress), James Coco (Best Supporting Actor), and Joan Hackett (Best Supporting Actress).

4. Of his first play Come Blow Your Horn, Simon recalled: "(It) took the equivalent of the combined hours, months, and years I put in writing The Red Buttons Show, the Sgt. Bilko Show, Caesar's Hour, and finally The Garry Moore Show, a weekly variety program on CBS which featured a bright new and dazzingly funny comedienne, Carol Burnett. I would come in at eight o'clock in the morning and work on my play for two hours, typing on Garry Moore's stationery, before tackling the Carol Burnett sketches at ten o'clock. Not only was Garry unknowingly subsidizing me while I worked for him, but he eventually became one of the first investors in Come Blow Your Horn, so he eventually got the money back for the typing paper I "borrowed" from him, and then some."

5. Neil Simon was married five times. He met his first wife, Joan Baim, when she was a children's counselor at a Poconos resort; Simon and his brother contributed to weekly revue shows at the same resort. Joan died in 1973 following a long battle with cancer. Simon met his second wife, actress Marsha Mason, when she auditioned for his play The Good Doctor in 1973. They divorced ten years later, but remained friends. His third and fourth marriages were to actress-model Diane Lander, who was 24 years younger than him. Knowing Simon's propensity to write about his own life, one of the conditions of their pre-nuptial agreement was that Neil not write about her or her daughter during her lifetime. Neil married Elaine Joyce in 1999; they were together until his recent death.

6. Simon's brother Danny, who was eight years older, brought Neil (whose nickname was Doc) into show business. Danny also inspired one of Neil's most successful plays when he divorced his wife and moved into an apartment with another divorced man. Recognize the premise of The Odd Couple?

7. Neil Simon has won three Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize (Lost in Yonkers), and the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He earned four Oscar nominations for Best Writing (The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys, The Goodbye Girl, and California Suite. He also received four Emmy nominations (two for Caesar's Hour and one each for TV adaptations of Broadway Bound and Laughter on the 23rd Floor).

This post is part of The Neil Simon Blogathon hosted by Caftan Woman and Wide Screen World.