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poliphilo No, not the band, the movie- directed by Mike Hodges, starring Michael Caine, which was released in 1972. I've always thought it sounded interesting .
Caine and Hodges had just made Get Carter- the bleakest, grittiest British gangster film of them all- and probably the best- so they were on a roll- and Pulp is what they indulged in next.
Always dangerous to indulge yourself. People may feel excluded.
Anyway, it flopped.
Pulp is another thriller, but a comedy thriller. Caine plays a pulp writer who gets hired to ghost the memoirs of a has-been Hollywood star. He comes trailing the reputation for cool he acquired in Get Carter and the Ipcress File, but then runs away and gets other people killed. So, is he this or is he that? And "maybe a bit of both" is not what an audience wants to hear. It's a confusing film. It means to be. There's a girl in hot pants who has no function except to be a girl in hot pants. There's an eccentric Englishman who looks like he'll have a role to play in the unravelling but then disappears around the halfway mark without doing anything but deliver a few choice lines. It's funny and then it's not. Then it's funny again. And then it's telling you that if you allow yourself to get involved in the games of the power elite they will either kill you or co-opt you- which is bleaker and grittier than anything in Get Carter.
Pulp is beautifully shot (on Malta because the mafia was making it too expensive to use locations in Sicily) and has terrific performances from Caine, the consummate film actor, Mickey Rooney playing something not very far from a caricature version of himself, Dennis Price being fruity, Lionel Stander being affable and Lizabeth Scott (who more or less came out of retirement to make it) as a lioness couchante. It has it's admirers; J.G. Ballard was one- and wrote Hodges a fan letter about it- and I'm another because while "Aw, who gives a fuck, we're having fun" is not an attitude that appeals to everyone it does to me...
Caine and Hodges had just made Get Carter- the bleakest, grittiest British gangster film of them all- and probably the best- so they were on a roll- and Pulp is what they indulged in next.
Always dangerous to indulge yourself. People may feel excluded.
Anyway, it flopped.
Pulp is another thriller, but a comedy thriller. Caine plays a pulp writer who gets hired to ghost the memoirs of a has-been Hollywood star. He comes trailing the reputation for cool he acquired in Get Carter and the Ipcress File, but then runs away and gets other people killed. So, is he this or is he that? And "maybe a bit of both" is not what an audience wants to hear. It's a confusing film. It means to be. There's a girl in hot pants who has no function except to be a girl in hot pants. There's an eccentric Englishman who looks like he'll have a role to play in the unravelling but then disappears around the halfway mark without doing anything but deliver a few choice lines. It's funny and then it's not. Then it's funny again. And then it's telling you that if you allow yourself to get involved in the games of the power elite they will either kill you or co-opt you- which is bleaker and grittier than anything in Get Carter.
Pulp is beautifully shot (on Malta because the mafia was making it too expensive to use locations in Sicily) and has terrific performances from Caine, the consummate film actor, Mickey Rooney playing something not very far from a caricature version of himself, Dennis Price being fruity, Lionel Stander being affable and Lizabeth Scott (who more or less came out of retirement to make it) as a lioness couchante. It has it's admirers; J.G. Ballard was one- and wrote Hodges a fan letter about it- and I'm another because while "Aw, who gives a fuck, we're having fun" is not an attitude that appeals to everyone it does to me...
