Walter Satterthwait suggested this one. No trailer was available, so I posted the opening scenes. That's okay. They're fun.Caine, who's very good, as always, is a hack writer who uses such pen names as O. R. Gann, Lez Behan, and Guy Strange. When he's asked to ghost the autobiography of a deported movie star and gangster, played by Mickey Rooney, he finds himself involved in a real crime story.
It's all pretty loosey-goosey, and the fun is in the journey, as they say, and not necessarily in the destination. That's not to say everything's not wrapped up. It is, but that's not the real point. The real point, to me, was getting to see Mickey Rooney prance around in his tightie-whities. Okay, maybe not. The real point was getting to see Robert Sacchi do a Bogart joke. Okay, maybe not. The real point was getting to see Nadia Cassini in hot pants. Okay, maybe not. The real point was getting to hear Lizbeth Scott's voice again. Okay, maybe not. The real point was the terrific scenery of the Isle of Malta. Or the line about Ross Macdonald. Or . . . okay, you probably know by now that while there were lots of things to enjoy, the plot wasn't one of them. Just go with it and see what you think. You can stream it from Netflix.
8 comments:
If I had the ability to stream, I could. Never heard of it even. Wow.
I'll have to watch it again. When I saw it in the theater years ago (I think it had a two-day release in a handful of cities), I was disappointed because my context of comparison was the earlier team-up of Michael Caine and Mike Hodges, GET CARTER. You can't beat GET CARTER, but that wasn't the point. At any rate, how often do you get to see Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Al Lettieri, Lionel Stander, and Lizabeth Scott together in one film?
"...getting to hear Lizbeth Scott's voice again.."
That was the point. In my humble opinion, of course.
For anyone who's interested, PULP is available on DVD in the "collectors' market".
I almost always Michael Caine very much, even in most of his bad movies.
This one is NOT bad and is one of my guilty pleasures.
Rick, it looks like there's actually a legitimate DVD edition of PULP from MGM Home Video here in the States. Unlike, say, THE GLASS KEY, where you have to go to the collector's market for a, ahem, "collector-to-collector" DVD copy of the 1935 George Raft version, or to European dealers for a DVD of the 1942 Alan Ladd remake in a Universal Pictures U.K. edition that, inexplicably, doesn't have a counterpart DVD release in the U.S.
I finally saw this last summer in London and while I wished it had wrapped up better, there was a lot of fun along the way. Caine is so often a delight and I usually hate Rooney, but couldn't here. Well worth checking out.
As I haven't quite noted on my blog yet today, this was one I was considering doing, having picked up the MGM dvd for $5 the other week at B&N (it might still be available thus at the handiest). But it awaits my viewing...to the Lizbeth Scott fans go the spoils.
An old fave of mine and my dad.Good call.
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