Hickey & Boggs

Action and suspense films from the early 1970s have a distinctive period flavor to them. The surprisingly effective Hickey and Boggs – co-star Robert Culp's sole directorial effort – embodies that disillusioned and dissolute era of movie making. The rough and choppy editing, the oddly cropped shots keep the viewer on edge; so do the less than pristine cinematography and the cacophonous sound track, with dialogue overlaid on a constant, dull background roar of ambient noise. Often this proved to be a recipe for pretentious but empty disasters and cynical exploitation films; here, it all works to keep the level of unease – of menace – uncomfortably high.

Bill Cosby and Robert Culp play the title characters, a couple of down-on-their-luck Los Angeles private investigators. (Many moviegoers of the era apparently expected a big-screen reprise of their successful pairing in the television spoof of the 1960s, I Spy; how wrong they were.) They are engaged to find a missing woman by one of those creepily effete characters who, since Peter Lorre's Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon, exist only to set up private eyes in the movies. And as they go about their sleuthing, they uncover a trail of brutally murdered corpses, a situation which does not endear them to the police. They come to learn that the woman they're tracking holds the take from a robbery of the Federal Reserve Bank in Pittsburgh some years before; they've been hired as finger men by one of a number of murky but vicious groups seeking to retrieve the cash.

The movie forgoes crisp, clockwork plotting for a generalized miasma of corruption, duplicity and malaise. There are allusions to the turbulent politics of the times in the involvement of black militants and Chicano radicals; there are whiffs, too, of the specter of newly hatched sexualities that threaten the status quo. At the scene of one murder, they find crushed amyl nitrite poppers and gay porn, while the jaded oldster who engages them suns himself on a towel sited suspiciously close to a set of swings where young children are cavorting; for that matter Culp, in his cups and a masochistic, self-pitying mood, watches his ex-wife flaunt herself in a strip club to be ogled by drunken strangers.

The malaise, of course, becomes murderous in Walter Hill's very violent screenplay, touching Cosby's character (his estranged wife ends up tortured to death). Still, the two dead-end dicks soldier on, more though one another's goading than from any code or commitment – they're both on the verge of giving up and sliding down into the vortex of lust, avarice and revenge that has become their world (and by extension, THE world). Describing Hickey and Boggs makes it sound like the ultimate downer; it is, but it's an uncommonly compelling piece of film making, and one that has pretty much fallen through the cracks of movie history.

Hickey & Boggs is directed by Robert Culp and written by Walter Hill. It stars Culp, Bill Cosby, James Woods, Ta-Ronce, Carmencristina Moreno, Rosalind Cash, Lou Frizzel, Isabel Sanford and Sheila Sullivan. Music is by Ted Ashford and cinematography by Bill Butler.

Al Hickey (Cosby) & Frank Boggs (Culp) are two jaded private investigators who get hired to find a missing woman and quickly find themselves submerged in a world of murder and untruths.

I don't think the title does it any favours, because in no way does it imply what a bleak and potent neo-noir this is. In many ways Hickey & Boggs is the anti private investigator film, it portrays two men failing in life who are just about clinging to the last vestiges of their work, that of the private dick. Robert Culp and Walter Hill strip everything back to unglamourous terms, there is nothing remotely sexy or invigorating about this detective agency, Al and Frank do it because it's all they have, all they know in fact.

The film makers push the two men through a grimy and fetid Los Angeles, pitching them in amongst an array of weirdos, killers, revolutionaries, sexual deviants and angry officials. There's actually a lot of bold colours on show, the two PI's themselves wearing bright lurid blue and green suits, but all the colour coding on show in the film is a front, a misdirection tactic, this Los Angeles is on the surface colourful and sunny into the bargain, but Hickey & Boggs firmly operates on a seedy and downbeat level, the urban milieu as far removed from a holiday brochure as you can get.

Al and Frank, bless their shabby souls, are damaged goods, incapable of the kind of human interaction that most take for granted. Even between themselves they have lost the will to interact outside of work orientated chatter. In fact chatter is a key issue in the film, or lack of as it turns out. There's some beautifully zippy dialogue throughout, real spiky barbs straight out of noirville, but the pic is at its best, away from the action scenes, in how periods of silence involving Al & Frank say so much. One will either rant or repeatedly ask a question, while the other stares off into space or nurse yet another alcoholic beverage to forget his pain. As a character study, this wades through the sludge and blood to show a clinically cynical hand.

Then there is the action scenes, excellently constructed by Culp. Two shoot-outs especially are high grade in quality, and extended they are as well. Aurally they are like a Panzer Division unloading its armoury, visually it's intentionally comic book as per bullets used, but excitement is guaranteed, while the finale, is played out on a beach that gives great carnage and then cuts like a knife to close the pic down in the most suitable of fashions. The screenplay is at times a little too aware of trying to be a convoluted nudge nudge wink wink to the halcyon days of film noir, with Walter Hill on his first writing assignment proving to be wet behind the ears, though the eagerness and respect of the style of film making is genuine in the extreme.

Three absolutes come out of viewing Hickey & Boggs nowadays. One, is that Culp the director, some minor pacing issues aside, really shouldn't have let the film's poor box office prevent him from directing further assignments. Two, is that Cosby shows here he was capable of great character based drama, his performance is simply terrific. Three? Hickey & Boggs is under seen, under valued and should be a requisite viewing for anyone interested in neo-noir. 9/10

Unknown or forgotten, and never released on video, this unexpectedly gritty film from Robert Culp (who also directed) and Bill Cosby is light years away from their popular I Spy series. As two low-end private eyes, neither has ever been more effective on screen before. An interesting, atypical contrast of styles in their acting; Cosby plays it humorless, (in a realistic, lived-in fashion, not a tough guy caricature) while Culp is alternates several nice modes for his character.

The earliest directorial effort from Walter Hill stands among the best of his career (it would make a fine double bill with his classic THE DRIVER), and also among the best of the rich era of 1970's crime dramas. It was released by United Artists and the rights-holders would do us a favor to release it for sale. It has some class-A action scenes and two terrific central performances. Hopefully will soon see the light of day again and gain some of the reputation it so deserves.

A real treat. Cosby is straight as an arrow. Reminds me of Lee Marvin, here. Culp uses very simple but arresting technique in this directorial debut. His style may look limited but it is hard to imagine a film edited and paced in such a style today except maybe Soderberg's THE LIMEY. This is a key film in the PI genre. It should be seen. Very intelligent, very enjoyable and marvelously put together. It has the pitfalls of the era, the 'heavies' are like lumbering monsters and there is probably one chilli dog too many. But these are quibbles. It's a pity Cosby wasn't in more movies like this. And a damn shame that Culp never picked up the camera again. 8/10

Despite the setting of Southern California and daytime set pieces, this is a very dark film, and presages much of Walter Hill's later work. A good cast, including the great Bill Hickman (a world class stunt driver and distinctive screen presence), it was probably marketed poorly. Movie-goers were led to believe that this "reunion" of TV's popular I SPY co-stars was going to somehow harken back to that glib and serendipitous collaboration.

Best line o'the film: after a protracted shoot-out with two sets of adversaries in Los Angeles' famed Coliseum, in which few bullets found their marks, Culp, while reloading his long-barreled S&W .357 Magnum, mutters: "I gotta get a bigger gun."