Gumshoe **** (1971, Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Frank Finlay, Janice Rule, Carolyn Seymour, Fulton Mackay) – Classic Movie Review 3328

Director Stephen Frears’s excellent 1971 British neo-noir retro-gangster yarn provides a heaven-sent acting opportunity for Albert Finney as Eddie Ginley, a music-hall comedian/ nightclub bingo caller who really wants to be Dashiell Hammett’s legendary fictional private detective Sam Spade.

So, on his 31st birthday, Ginley starts a new career and turns himself into a private eye, er gumshoe, with an advert in the newspaper, wearing a trench coat and talking in rapid-fire dialogue à la Humphrey Bogart. He takes on the job of investigating a dangerous case involving murder, weapons smuggling and drugs when a drug-addicted fat man (George Silver) hires him by phone, luring him to a hotel room where he finds a package containing a gun, a large sum of money (£1,000 – it was a long tine ago!) and a photograph of a woman (Carolyn Seymour).

Gumshoe pulls off that clever difficult trick of being gripping both as a spoof and as a thriller, thanks to the clever screenplay by Neville Smith (who also has an acting role) and Frears’s taut direction. Chris Menges’s cinematography, Richard Rambaut’s production designs, the Liverpool locations, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s score and the many able co-stars all make notable contributions to the success. Finney executive produced, with his Memorial Enterprises business partner Michael Medwin and David Barber.

It also stars Billie Whitelaw as Ellen, Frank Finlay as Ginley’s obnoxious and non-supportive brother William, Janice Rule as Mrs Blankerscoon and Fulton Mackay as Straker, all of them excellent. Also in the cast are George Innes, Billy Dean, Wendy Richard, Maureen Lipman, Oscar James, Ken Jones, Tom Kempinski, Joey Kenyon, Bert King, Harry Hutchinson and Sammy Sharples.

Sam Spade was of course most famously played by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Frank Finlay CBE (6 August 1926 – 30 January 2016).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3328

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