The Cheap Detective

Not as funny as Murder by Death, but spoofing both the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca is funny enough. Falk is great and has a great cast around him. My problem is that it gets pretty repetitive by the end.

Excellent, undervalued film predates the ZAZ spoof films of the 80s and manages the same degree of wit and affection for the source material (though the groaners come at a thick and fast pace!) Falk's brilliant Bogie impersonation is matched by Fletcher's portrait of "boring beauty" Bergman, and the rest of the eclectic cast manage to score some great laughs along the way.

How do you not love Peter Falk's Bogie impersonation?!? Make sure you're familiar with The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca if you want to get the most out of this.

Who knew Neil Simon could come up with something funny and entertaining? Not me.

This spoof of 40s detective movies has a few laughs, but most of the actors don't really seem to be buying into what they're doing. The sense of humor is kind of a toned down Naked Gun/Airplane!, but it's extremely charitable to compare it to those films, as it's not very funny. It riffs on a lot of famous films, from Casablanca to The Maltese Falcon, but in addition to not being that funny, it just left me wishing I was watching the films it was based on again instead. A misguided effort.

This is a parody of Casablanca along with every other noir movie (especially the Bogart ones). If you don't like those, you probably won't enjoy this. Even as a fan, I found only some of the humor worked; other bits felt like Groucho Marx's non sequiturs. It's ridiculously silly, and, at times, it looked like the cast was holding in a lot of laughs. It might just be too much of a good thing, though; it got somewhat predictable as it started to wrap up. Best part: Houseman's fat suit.

A fairly average and slightly disappointing spoof that mostly fell flat for me. Which is sad as I was excited by the amazingly stacked cast.

How is this movie so hot, funny and absurd all at once? This is just a smolderfest, but there's no one necessarily even that likable in it. Be careful, though. The charisma levels will melt lesser models of viewing device. Really brutally witty. But you might have to be in just the right mood.