Auf leisen Sohlen (1971)
32KAuf leisen Sohlen: Directed by Stephen Frears. With Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Frank Finlay, Janice Rule. Inspired by his love for Dashiell Hammett novels, nightclub comedian Eddie Ginley puts an ad in the paper as a private eye. The case he gets turns out to be a strange setup and as he digs to the bottom of it his life starts falling apart.
“The 70s. You had to be there.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe cheap production standards of the 50s were an attempt to mass produce films the way you would would mass produce shoes. The 60s was an experimental era the same way the children of the 60s were experimenting with everything they could get their hands on.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBy the 70s films had become more contemplative. The folks behind this little gem decided it was time somebody wrote a script that captured the very essence of the film noires from the 40s.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNotice I emphasized the script first, because the rest seems almost an afterthought. Make no mistake. Finney is brilliant as the protagonist comic who wants to be a shamus, a gumshoe, but without that magical script there would be no movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe script is brilliant. You could turn the picture off and simply listen to the soundtrack and not miss much. ITS THAT GOOD.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOne scene in particular where Eddie has to seduce an office girl to get an address seems a riff off Bogey in BIG SLEEP. But with better and faster dialog.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe fact that even the IMDb tag for the film says u0026quot;comedyu0026quot; — WHICH IT WAS NOT — tells you how lost this gem is in the annals of film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhitelaw is great. Janice Rule steals her few scenes.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eRecommended.”
