Jasmeen Pradhan
I came upon this movie online. I must say, I found it intriguing and quite good. The acting is superb! George Peppard as a down-on-his luck P.I., was a tremendous delight. He was believable! Even Raymund Burr as William Orbison was excellent. He was sinister without even trying to be sinister. But my only misgivings was that I kind of knew what was going to happen even before it happened. But all in all, I liked how the actors portrayed their respected roles. They did their best to put on a stellar performances, in spite of some of the dialogue. I am quite sorry that I cannot find a a decent copy to add to my collection of good movies. They don't make P.I. movies like they used to.
vespatian75
This is an excellent PI film of the late 60's. George Peppard is perfect in the lead as the classic Private Eye, world weary but basically honest. A Korean War vet who describes that conflict as World War II&1/2. He takes on a job for a ruthless tycoon played by Raymond Burr to protect his truly gorgeous mistress, the ravishing Gayle Hunnicutt, and of course the plot thickens. Great scenes of the old somewhat seedy New York that I grew up in. I loved the description of Red Hook, "by the river, in the river if you're not careful" Nice contrast with the Caribbean locales later on. Well cast with a tight yet witty script and no nonsense direction. I'm surprised that there were no sequels or TV spinoffs. Maybe not so good as the classic " Maddigan" , which deals with New York around the same time, but well worth a look.
Lucius-5
I would like to see P.J. again. I need one more time to make sense of the ending. I saw it twice when it first came out. The second of these two times was on a U.S. Navy ship, and the gay leather bar scene had been removed, presumably to protect sensitive sailors; in the edited version P. J. suddenly appeared beaten up with no explanation. (The irony is that a gay leather bar is a very subdued place, where the only fights are non-physical disagreements over china patterns and over recipes.)What I remember forty years later are several scenes: the bad guy dragged by the departing subway train; the gay bar scene, of course; and P.J.'s paying hubcap thieves to protect his car. Yes, I'd call it gritty.
pendoc-1
This is a film about a smart, irreverent PI who gets pulled into a conspiracy and sorts it out. Excellent script, dialog, and plot.This film, in its theatrical release version, may have been suppressed. There's a fair amount of non-PC gay bashing which could have ruffled some feathers.The film was cleaned up for TV in the mid-70's. It was heavily re-edited, objectionable portions were removed, and possibly there were new scenes shot that were not in the theatrical release -- some of the plot twists are different. The TV version lost much of the punch of the original and is deservedly forgotten.I've been looking for a print/tape/DVD of the theatrical version for years, but I doubt one will ever surface.
AD
