Gumshoe (1971)

In the Sky Arts director series I watched a tribute to Stephen Frears the other day whose canon of work includes My Beautiful Laundrette, Liaisons Dangereuses and The Queen.  

The first film he directed was Gumshoe.

This was way back in 1971. I enjoyed it at the time and I enjoyed it when I re-watched it last night.

The story is of Eddie Gimley (Albert Finney), an MC in a working men club in Liverpool, who puts an advert in the local paper that he is a private detective.

This leads to a complex plot involving his more successful brother William (Frank Finlay), his wife (Billie Whitelaw) – who was the girlfriend of Eddie – and a fat South African and glamorous American (Janice Rule).

It’s a spoof on the Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett genre with wise-cracking dialogue.

All of them act well, especially Albert Finney who has to play a comedian, Bogart-style, private dick in a white trench coat and Scouser cheeky lad.

Watch out for Maureen Lipman in a minor role and the soundtrack was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

It also has some interesting scenes of Liverpool and London in early 70s.

The only thing that was dated and jarred was the pejorative references to the only black character calling him after the black suit in a deck of cards.

The plot was hard to follow but so was  Raymond Chandler’s.

It is said that for one film the director had to ask Chandler who killed the chauffeur.

There is a lot to enjoy in this film which launched the career of Stephen Frears.