This brilliant Steve Martin comedy was released in 1982. The movie is a parody of a film noir and pulp detective movie of the 1940's. It was directed by Carl Reiner, who was also involved in the equally brilliant The man With Two Brains (from 1983) and The Jerk (from 1979).
Steve Martin took the lead role as Rigby Reardon, a private investigator, who is hired by Juliet (played by Rachel Ward - who also starred in The Thorn Birds) to investigate the death of her father (played by George Gaynes...yep Commandant Lassard from Police Academy!).
The movie goes in all kinds of directions, royally parodying this type of movie, and the really clever thing is the way they incorporate a ton of old black and white movie footage with the black and white modern work, and incorporating the acting talents of 18 stars including James Cagney, Humprey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
It's actually a really hard movie to describe plot-wise, but one things for certain, this makes you ache for the days when Steve Martin could do no wrong and was a genuinely funny and innovative performer. He plays a really mean Banjo these days, but really, when was his last good movie?
This hopefully reminds you though of the days when he was just brilliant.
The movie was scored by Miklós Rózsa, his last movie.
Enjoy!
Finally, a collection of the funniest scenes.
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