PULP

"Pulp" is a self-reverential comedy-thriller that pays homage, not just to the kind of pulp fiction you find in dime-store novels, but to gangster movies as well and it's almost too smart for its own good but Mike Hodges, who both wrote and directed, was just clever enough not to go too far. Michael Caine is the writer of said pulp fiction hired to ghost the autobiography of a former actor mostly associated with gangster movies. He's Mickey Rooney, Lizabeth Scott is an ex-wife and Lionel Stander his righthand man so you know the homage also applies to the casting.

It's a highly entertaining picture that's been shamefully underrated; indeed it's hardly known at all despite Caine's name above the title and this is one of his best performances. Rooney's terrific and even Scott's good here and there's a nice supporting turn from Dennis Price as a sinister Englishman. Hodges shot it on location in Malta though it's meant to be an 'unnamed Mediterranean island'; that way, you see, we can spend more time getting around when in reality you can get around relatively tiny Malta in a couple of hours or less. A treat that deserves to be better known.