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Pulp
Memoirs of a Ghostwriter
UK 1972
produced by Michael Klinger for Three Michaels Film Productions
directed by Mike Hodges
starring Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lionel Stander, Lizabeth Scott, Nadia Cassini, Dennis Price, Al Lettieri, Leopoldo Trieste, Amerigo Tot, Robert Sacchi, Giulio Donnini, Joe Zammit Cordina, Luciano Pigozzi, Maria Cumani Quasimodo, Liù Bosisio, Cristina Gaioni, Janet Agren, Irene Sophie Opperman, Iver Gilborn, Elaine Olcott, Ave Ninchi, Ermelinda De Felice, Werner Hasselmann, Louise Lambert, Victor Mercieca, Cettina Borg Olivier, Anna Smith
written by Mike Hodges, music by George Martin
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Mickey King (Michael Caine) is a pulp writer, selling cheap thrills on
paper under a host of pseudonyms with quite some success - and to not have
to share his income with his ex-wife, he has long relocated to Malta. But
while he's used to writing mindless and sleazy gangster fare, his PR man
Dinuccio (Lionel Stander) now sets him up with a special assignment, to
become a ghostwriter of popular gangster actor Preston Gilbert (Mickey
Rooney) - who is said to have ties to the mob himself, which is why
getting Mickey to Preston's place is shrouded in secrecy that forces him
to take a dead-boring tourist bus tour across the island - on which one of
the passengers, Miller (Al Lettieri) is shot, apparently in Mickey's
place. Writing Preston's bio goes without a hitch, even if Preston's an
ass who's way too full of himself, but before the book manages to even
make the way to its publisher, Preston's shot dead at a party, and Mickey
can only just escape being shot as well, and the only thing he's sure of
is there's a gunman after him now. Investigating why anybody would even
find him interesting enough to want to kill, Mickey finds out about a
scandal from ten years ago, a scandal that might also involve one of the
island's most successful politicians (Victor Mercieca), who has incidently
stolen Preston's wife (Lizabeth Scott) a few years back ... By the way,
one of the first movies featuring Humphrey Bogart impersonator Robert
Sacchi. Even if above synopsis might make Pulp sound
like a rather tense thriller, and it's bloody and suspenseful enough to be
just that, it's mostly played for laughs, with Michael Caine giving an
intentionally too-cool-for-his-own-good performance, the rest of the cast
(especially Mickey Rooney and Lionel Stander) hamming it up with relish,
scenes breaking out into slapstick ever so often, and Michael Caine's
off-screen narration that seems to be lifted straight from any number of
pulp novels being the icing on the comedy cake. And it works, too, thanks
to a rather tight script, direction and camerawork that avoid the
ridiculous-for-its-own-sake like plague, and an atmosphere typical to the
1970s that seems to breathe coolness and that's only rarely even tried to
achieve nowadays. Pretty much a must-see!
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