The Cheap Detective
A spoof of the entire 1940s detective genre. San Francisco private detective, Lou Pekinpaugh is accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress—his partner's wife.
From the archive
In this satire of film noir, Lou Peckinpaugh (Peter Falk) is a San Francisco detective in the boozy, wise-cracking tradition of Humphrey Bogart in "The Maltese Falcon." A suspect in the murder of his own partner, Lou hopes to solve the crime and exonerate himself before the cops haul him in. Meanwhile, he takes a case involving stolen diamonds, and gets reacquainted with his old flame, Marlene DuChard (Louise Fletcher), who's on the run from the Gestapo.
Why this is free to watch
The Cheap Detective (1978) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. No signup, no payment and no advertising interrupts playback. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Internet Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Robert Moore
- Starring
- Peter Falk, Ann-Margret, Eileen Brennan, Sid Caesar, Stockard Channing, James Coco, Dom DeLuise, Louise Fletcher
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