If you enjoy movie parody, this send-up of Bogart classics will be right up your alley. The nods to "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" are plainly obvious, with more than a passing reference in the latter part of the picture to "The Big Sleep". You could tell the principal players were having a hoot of a time filming this; just watch Louise Fletcher as she caresses Peter Falk's shoulder in that scene where he tells her he has a bottle of champagne he bought for the honeymoon that never was. When he mentions that the bread and cheese got hard as a rock, she starts to crack up before gaining composure again.

With the usual gang of idiots like Madeline Kahn and Dom DeLuise on hand, one might think this was a Mel Brooks production, but this one comes courtesy of Neil Simon and director Robert Moore. It's almost impossible to pick out a favorite funny moment because there are so many quips and sight gags it's hard to keep up. Every time Lou Peckinpaugh (Peter Falk) opens a nightstand or desk drawer he's pulling out a ready made drink, doing so with the greatest equanimity. Each of the female leads was a blast and a half, pulling off their impersonations perfectly, with both Eileen Brennan and Ann-Margret sending up Bogey's main squeeze, Lauren Bacall.

While it's fun to play the match game with the characters here with those in Bogart's actual films, I guess my favorite would have been Madeline Kahn doing the Mary Astor thing from "The Maltese Falcon" with all the phony aliases. Scatman Crothers is also in fine form as piano player Tinker, reprising the Dooley Wilson role as Sam in "Casablanca". I would never have guessed that 'Jeepers, Creepers' was on Lou's forbidden song list the same way 'As Time Goes By' was for Rick Blaine. Not enough romance in it I guess.

A couple years after this film came out, Robert Sacchi did a similar turn in "The Man With Bogart's Face", another parody heavy on the Casablanca and Maltese Falcon references. The one thing he did that Peter Falk didn't even try was Bogey's familiar facial grimace in a tense situation, although by the time that picture was finished he might have overdone it. So if it comes to making a recommendation between the two flicks, I'd have to paraphrase Rick Blaine from "Casablanca" or Marlene DuChard (Louise Fletcher) in this one - "Of all the cheap gin joints and film noir knock-offs in this world, I pick this one".

Lou Peckinpaugh is a San Fransisco gumshoe having an affair with his partner's wife when the partner turns up dead. Investigating the case, Lou has to contend with the widow, three lowlifes seeking some diamond eggs, a French resistance fighter and his wife on the run from the Germans and a dotty old millionaire.

Written by Broadway playwright Neil Simon, this gentle, goofy comedy take on hard-boiled detective stories of the forties artfully combines the plots of The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca with a bit of The Big Sleep thrown in for good measure, and the result is an amiably good-natured movie that's hard not to enjoy. Its trump card is the large lovable cast, with Falk doing a great Humphrey Bogart swagger and everyone else chewing the scenery with aplomb as characters with names like Betty DeBoop and Jasper Blubber. Particularly good are the sextet of leading ladies; Ann-Margret is stunningly voluptuous, Brennan is a great torch-song dame, Channing a sweet ingenue, Fletcher a hilarious self-righteous version of Ingrid Bergman, peerless comedienne Kahn a neurotic pathological liar à la Mary Astor, and goldilocks Mason (Simon's wife at the time) the wacky widow who turns out to be the killer. The production quality is first rate, with super costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge and great camera-work by John A. Alonzo (which would have looked even better in black-and-white). I guess this is a kind of lazy, hokey movie, but it does what all good satirical pastiche should do - it's funny in its own right and it's a compliment to the stories and movies it's parodying.

With the success of "Murder By Death", Neil Simon is back with many of the same actors from this movie in "The Cheap Detective". Like "Murder By Death", "The Cheap Detective" is filled with very corny jokes and a lot of silliness. Unlike "Murder By Death", however, this film just doesn't work well....and nearly all the jokes fall very flat. After a while, I found myself rather bored by it.

The film is much like combining several of Humphrey Bogart's films and having Peter Falk play up his Bogey voice. You'll see quite a bit of "Casablanca", "The Maltese Falcon" and even a bit of "The Big Sleep". And while Falk and the cast try their hardest, as I mentioned above, it's just not funny. Painfully unfunny, actually.