Easy Shot

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

THE CHEAP DETECTIVE Directed by Robert Moore Screenplay by Neil Simon

To risk an inappropriate word for so commercial an enterprise, The Cheap Detective is the spiritual rather than the direct sequel to Murder by Death, which did so nicely at the box office two summers ago. That film had the same writer, same producer, same director, even some of the same cast as Detective. Most important, the two movies share the notion that a charming pastiche of a beloved popular cultural form can turn a tidy profit in the nostalgia market. Murder aped the murderer-among-the-house-guests mystery story; The Cheap Detective jokes around with ... with ... well, the Humphrey Bogart movie.

As main ingredients, Neil Simon has boldly blended The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, adding some finely chopped bits from The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. He was shrewd enough to realize that it was not the story lines of his sources that gave them their hold on our affections. Bogart's incisive, ironic characterization of the urban loner, the Hemingwayish dialogue and the film noir look that gave Warner Bros, films their unique quality in the '40s, the forcefulness of the studio's stable of character actors--all of these elements combined to create a style that is the real target for a would-be satirist.

Alas, the picture does not come off because execution does not match conception. Simon's literary palette is as lacking in delicate hues as Director Moore's visual one. It is bold to plunk Rick's cafe down in Sam Spade's San Francisco. It is even mildly funny to have Victor Laszlo require his wife's old lover to help him get not letters of transit so he can escape the Nazis but a liquor license so he can open a French restaurant in Oakland. But when the song that reminds Rick of his lost love (As Time Goes By in the original) turns out to be Jeepers, Creepers, one can't help thinking that Simon has too readily granted himself letters of transit to cross the frontier that separates wit from juvenile haw-hawing.

Director Moore tries to disguise the laziness of Simon's effort with a quick step pace, but Peter Falk, although he does a good imitation of Bogart's snarly lisp, tends to give the game away by resting on that modest achievement. Few of the other "all-stars" do much more than trace a broad Crayola line around fa miliar types. The Cheap Detective offers a few snorts of recognition and a basically good-natured air. But frankly, they did this sort of thing just as well, and a lot more quickly, on the Carol Burnett Show. Don't even mention Sid Caesar's old program. -- Richard Schickel

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