Customer Reviews

Hickey & Boggs [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

100% PURE DRECK! I am a former 35mm film collector who once had
this print in my collection. I also am a union projectionist and ran this film in Detroit area theatres when it first came out. When you buy DVD you expect DVD quality. This copy looks like a third or fourth generation dub from a worn out VHS tape in SLP mode. Some day MGM/UA will release a pristine print. In the meantime, save your money!

You can tell how bad the DVD is of this film; the website for which I am doing this review does not even list this title on DVD anymore. No question, it is a terrible DVD transfer. I am giving this three stars because it's a great film. The screenplay is by none other than Walter Hill and one of the two leads, Robert Culp, directed--as far as I know, his only feature film directorial effort (he did direct a number of TV show episodes, different shows).

This is a tough as nails noir film with Culp and Bill Cosby as two cynical PIs who get mixed up in a money laundering caper to the tune of 400 grand from a prior bank heist. Also involved are a slick crime boss and his henchmen--one of them is played by a very young Michael Moriarty--and, echoing Chandler, an effeminate lawyer, as well as the cops. The main two of that group are Vincent Gardenia, Sgt. Papadakis, and another early appearance, this time by James Woods at Lt. Wyatt.

But the two title characters carry the film and they do a great job. The dialogue is razor sharp and probably the most cynical in any film from the 70s, and maybe even since then. These two guys are so jaded and emotionally hollowed out that when a tragic loss hits one of them, the other one engages in semi-banter to cheer the first guy up, not even offering any sympathy.

Each of them carries an extra-long barrel revolver; each of them always wears a suit. Boggs (Culp) drinks too much. Each of them is divorced, but Hickey has dreams of getting back together with his wife while Boggs watches his ex dance in a strip club.

As a writer, Walter Hill is almost always great and here he shows his stuff to the max. Hill knows his noir; he smacks the viewer in the face with it, knowing just how far to go without being completely alienating. He's a master screenwriter, no question.

It's really too bad that the DVD quality of this film is so miserable. Maybe one day a clean crisp transfer will be available. Until then, as many others here have said, the VHS copy actually shows better video quality than the crappy DVD. Shame on AIP for putting out such a piece of trash for such a punchy film.

A few years after their successful run as partners in espionage on television's "I Spy", Robert Culp and Bill Cosby teamed up for "Hickey & Boggs", a cynical 1972 neo-noir that Culp directed. Far from the adventurous, optimistic duo that Culp and Cosby portrayed in "I Spy", Al Hickey (Bill Cosby) and Frank Boggs (Robert Culp) are private investigators with a dearth of clients and abundance of personal problems. They are hired by a Mr. Rice (Lester Fletcher) to locate a woman named Mary Jane Bower and given a short list of her known acquaintances. The first person on the list is found dead, the bodies pile up, the guns get bigger, and the police lose their patience with the detectives' habit of withholding evidence. But Mary Jane (Carmen) seems to be the key to the loot from a big armored car heist, so Hickey and Boggs keep plugging away, with a $25,000 reward at stake and little left to lose.

"Hickey & Boggs" excels in presenting the private investigator as an emasculated relic, barely able to make a living, at odds with the police, relegated by laws and modernity to being "nothing but process servers". The opposite in many ways of the pre-WWII heroic detectives like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Even their antiquated firearms illustrate the obsolescence of the P.I.. This isn't a respectable profession any more. Ex-cop Hickey and world-weary, alcoholic Boggs take their clients' money, unconcerned that they are criminals. No one is especially sympathetic, and it is difficult to say who is victim and who is predator, as the fences, Mary Jane, and the detectives seem to be both. The unremitting cynicism and enfeebled protagonists aren't to everyone's taste, but they are typical of film noir of the 1970s.

The first half of "Hickey & Boggs" is riddled with short, out-of-context scenes of Mary Jane's activities that don't make sense until later. The confusion diminishes somewhat as the film progresses, but the plot never does entirely come together. Mary Jane and her partner must fence the money, because the bills are too big for them to spend. But the actions of the various fences who compete for the money don't make sense. Mary Jane is trying to break $1000 bills, which were taken out of circulation in 1969 and had not been printed since 1945. Those look like new bills in the movie. This story didn't need to be as disjointed as it is. I would excuse the confusion early in the film if it reflected the detectives' state of mind, but it really doesn't, because they are following a different trail of evidence. Nevertheless, "Hickey & Boggs" is a heavy dose of pessimism that will more than satisfy the misanthrope in anyone.

The DVD (AIP Studios 2004): This is a terrible transfer of a terrible print. It is very grainy and actually fuzzy. Some additional problems occur around the one-hour mark: At 56 minutes, the picture jumps a few times. At 59 minutes, there are wide bands across the top of the screen. At 1 hour, 5 minutes, there are some thin white lines. Suffice it to say that the picture is bad, but it's watchable. Don't buy this disc unless you absolutely have to have the film. The only bonus features are text bios of Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, which include selected filmographies.

It should be noted that many of the reviews that Amazon has chosen to post on this page are for previous DVD and VHS releases of this film. The reviews are quite correct, those versions are horrible. This one is excellent, as MODs go, and is certainly going to be the best quality version that you are going to find anywhere. So please ignore the low overall rating as it is being dragged down by these erroneous comments.

This is the worst DVD I've ever seen. Not the movie, that was great. It looks like it was transferred from about a third generation VHS tape. The box says Digitally Remastered, but it definitely is not. I felt really ripped off by this disc. Amazon, you should not sell this DVD to your customers.

Saw this on release in the theatres back in the day and have always wondered why it never hit DVD. Two low-life P.I.'s on the verge of going under suddenly get a shot at the big time. Interesting character study with Cosby and Culp in top form. Wait for a good copy from the studio or download from Amazon.

70s. L.A. Buddy. P.I.s. Okay, that should be all some need to recommend this gritty, forgotten curiosity from 1972.

The picture reunites the stars of the landmark TV Series I SPY: Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, with Culp behind the camera as well. If audiences expected to see good-natured bantering and camaraderie, they didn't get it here. The guy's are world-weary private eyes who sense they're anachronisms, as they wind their way through a case that takes an increasingly high toll on them.

The somewhat confusing plot revolves around the two being hired to track down a mysterious woman who is making the rounds in LA trying to sell money, that is, trying to find a fence who will take the marked loot from a bank hold-up off her hands.

Watching H&B, it's a little surprising to remember what a commanding screen presence Cosby was in the days before he became a sit-com icon. By this point, he'd been a huge stand-up, but both the TV shows he'd starred in had been on film, and as Hickey he showcases his effortless command of the camera. Watching him here, it's easy to imagine he could have taken on similar roles in other 70s fare.

Culp's an interesting case, a terrific actor who despite the smash BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE, never took off with a big screen career. He's superb, with a Redford-like unpredictable charisma and that crackling William Holden-esque voice. He has a scene late in this picture, which is a drunken pep talk to Cosby that is perfectly played.

He also wrote episodes ofI SPY and H&B is pretty damn impressive as his only directorial credit. Of course, he handles the scenes with the actors well, but he also brings to the whole picture a deft, laconic style. And this film is very well edited! Short, choppy scenes create a cool rhythm. A rendezvous at the LA Coliseum is teased out by quick back-and-forth cuts, such that the whole thing is much more effective than it has any right to be. A later similar stakeout scene, with the detectives in their car, ends with a nice Altman-like moving pan. It's only in the film's shoot-em-up climax that things get a little less assured and prosaic.

Hickey & Boggs is well written by Walter Hill. There are lots of brief dialogue-less scenes that build the tension. In fact, all the scenes with the woman at the center of the story are word-less. When the partners are alone we get some nice moments whether they're in some dive bar or their crummy office. Maybe best of all, in one scene Boggs asks Hickey with quiet seriousness:" Have you ever killed anyone? In the United States?" That's a nice way of telling us these two have been around the block, in the service, and have done ugly things they'd like to forget. This fact informs the cynicism we watch grow thought the film.

The picture has a good cast. Seventies mainstay Vincent Gardenia shows up as their nemesis on the force whose boss is played by James Woods (?!?!) who must be all of 21. One of the badguys is played by that grinning, baby-faced enigma Michael Moriarty. Hickey's love interest is the radiant Rosalind Cash.

If you love 70s detective cinema, you have to check this out. The cars, the suits, the locations, the style. And the seriousness of the solid filmmaking. In fact, I suspect if this film had the name of another director on it - like Don Siegel or Robert Aldrich - it wouldn't have fallen by the wayside as it has. It's a tribute to Culp the director that it still holds up, and doesn't feel at all dated. It's further tribute to him and his partner Cosby, that's it's so watchable.

This DVD is an example of two extremes. One being that he actual film is terrific, a hard boiled detective film with solid performances, especially from Bill Cosby, and a good story. But the other extreme is unforgivable. This is arguably the worst quality DVD ever presented on the commercial market. Words could not do justice in describing the wretched quality of this product. It is an absolute travesty that a movie of this calibre will probably go down in history as the worst DVD transfer of all time!!!!

I saw this movie as a kid and loved it. For years I searched for it and with the exception of the disappointing initial dvd release (bad quality, full screen, etc) it seemed that I would never see a good copy again.

Well, this is the movie the way I saw it in the theater. The picture is quality is top notch, the sound is excellent, it is wide screen and uncut.

The chemistry between Culp and Cosby is wonderful. The film noire-ish plot, the seedier side of LA, little star turns by Rosalind Cash, James Woods, Michael Moriarity, Robert Mandan, and a stable of reliable character actors all contribute to one of the best private eye movies of the 1970's.

This is a gem worthy of your attention.

I saw this film upon it's release in a local theater. After all the time it was relegated to occasional airings on WGN, I figured it would never be released on video.
I love the tagline, "they're not cool, slick heroes, they're worn tough men and that's why they're so dangerous." In this era of over-the-top shootouts, I really value the way violence is depicted in this neglected film. The shootout in the football stadium epitomizes this. The way Robert Culp's character, Franklin Boggs gathers himself behind a barrier before rising up in a possible line of fire, shooting his handgun with both hands sure struck me as more realistic than a lot of the cartoonish gunplay popular nowadays. He breathes and gathers himself before firing, and one gets a real sense this is real violence with real, serious possible consequences. I've no military training, but imagine this to be closer to the way things really are.