Peeper (1975) How does one assess the career of the now retired writer-director-cinematographer Peter Hyams?
To use baseball analogy, at his very best, he could hit solid triples......but home runs were always just beyond his grasp.....
He could craft clever enough scenes and dialogue when called upon, but when it came to the 'stick-the-landing' moments in his films, he either fell a little short.....or failed altogether.
But this is no indie, culture-vulture artiste we're talking about.....Hyams aspired to hit the A-list heights... with big-budget high profile popular entertainments loaded up with major stars, And in an unusual move for a director chasing boffo box-office, he also functioned as his own director of photography (which never endeared him to the ASC, who denied him membership.....)
His filmography? I'll be the first to admit to enjoying a whole bunch of his popcorn munchin' output....."Capricorn One", "Hanover Street", "Outland", "The Star Chamber", "2010", his remake of the noir classic "Narrow Margin" and my own personal fave, the monster-in-the-museum shlocker, "The Relic".\
I even hold a warm spot in my heart for his weirdly ambitious flop, "The Musketeer" which attempted to graft Hong Kong-style swordplay and acrobatics on to 'The 3 Musketeers'......a truly wacky sight to behold, but just try taking your eyes off it......
"Peeper", a deliberate jokey spoof of 1940's Private Eye noir probably fell into Hyams' hands since his career took off with his well reviewed 1972 TV movie "Goodnight, My Love".....more or less the same exact wink-wink 40's Raymond Chandler knockoff.....(only much better).
The film wastes no time announcing its intentions......with a Bogart imitator lurking in a shadowy alley, reciting aloud the film's opening credits of cast, writer (W. D. Richter) and director.
From there, we move on to Michael Caine, playing a sort of cockney Sam Spade transplanted to L.A. He spits out the snappy patter well enough as he launches himself into a laborious storyline that heavily draws on "The Big Sleep".....(which I can promise, you'll give up trying to make sense of after the first fifteen minutes....)
Natalie Wood shows up in the Lauren Bacall role, the alluring heiress whose moral compass may point in any direction at any given time......as a longtime Wood fan, I wish I could tell you she has a real ball with this but sorry, no. The script runs out steam (and wit) early on, forcing Caine and Wood into a lot of aimless slapstick-heavy shtick in service to its convoluted plotline......which nobody cares about anyway.....
Hyams always keeps things moving along, but to no real purpose and the film grows progressively worse as it finishes up with the entire cast running around on a cruise ship......like a Marx brothers movie with all the jokes taken out. Tiresome and yawn provoking.
A complete waste of the time and talents of everyone involved, BQ suffered through 'Peeper' so all of you, beloved visitors, won't ever have to......1 star (*)....and that one's only for the always welcome presence of the the two stars.
As for Peter Hyams, he bounced back in fine fashion with his 1977 evil government-vs.-astronauts thriller "Capricorn One", (you can check out the BQ review of 3/10/21).....where he launched his busy career as a reliable hitter of cinematic triples......but couldn't quite get all around the bases....
No comments:
Post a Comment