A splendid Maltese Falcon parody, set in the Forties and one of the best American TV movies ever made. Richard Boone is a private detective, cast in the Bogart mould, with Barbara Bain substituting for Lauren Bacall as the blonde who hires him. A novel touch is added by Michael Dunn as Boone's dwarf sidekick, who only escapes bullets fired through a door because he's so small. And the rotund villain of the piece provides a characteristic role for Victor Buono, adorned in white suit in Sydney Greenstreet style and forever sitting in his nightclub gorging himself on snails. Slickly paced, it's stamped with style by director Peter Hyams, whose highly entertaining cinema films include Capricorn One, Outland and Narrow Margin.


©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes