The 70s. You had to be there.The cheap production standards of the 50s were an attempt to mass produce films the way you would would mass produce shoes. The 60s was an experimental era the same way the children of the 60s were experimenting with everything they could get their hands on.By the 70s films had become more contemplative. The folks behind this little gem decided it was time somebody wrote a script that captured the very essence of the film noires from the 40s.Notice I emphasized the script first, because the rest seems almost an afterthought. Make no mistake. Finney is brilliant as the protagonist comic who wants to be a shamus, a gumshoe, but without that magical script there would be no movie.The script is brilliant. You could turn the picture off and simply listen to the soundtrack and not miss much. ITS THAT GOOD.One scene in particular where Eddie has to seduce an office girl to get an address seems a riff off Bogey in BIG SLEEP. But with better and faster dialog.The fact that even the IMDb tag for the film says "comedy" -- WHICH IT WAS NOT -- tells you how lost this gem is in the annals of film.Whitelaw is great. Janice Rule steals her few scenes.Recommended.

I recently saw this for the fourth time, the first time having been in the cinema upon its release. This first viewing saw me classifying it as a pastiche along the lines of Woody Allen's "Play it again, Sam" or "The Black Bird" with George Segal. In fact, the script and acting of "Gumshoe" make it infinitely better than either of these two and put it into that rare category of films, which actually get BETTER with each viewing. For a film approaching its fortieth anniversary, obviously much of the background, (such as the physical locations in Liverpool and Billie Whitelaw's being 'locked' into her loveless marriage with Frank Finlay), are now museum pieces/views into the past. Overall, though, the film still comes across as amazingly fresh and entertains from beginning to end. The lightning speed patter and one-liners are razor sharp and the performances by ALL of the lead characters are stunning. The nearest parallel I can find is "The Third Man" and, while it is definitely not in that category overall, I still think this is a very good film indeed which was vastly underestimated when it first came out,(for example by me!), and which only grows in stature and the enjoyment it affords with each renewed viewing.

I didn't think much of this movie when I first saw it some years back. However it has certainly grown on me. As other comments say it is something of a CULT movie. Good cast of actors (national & local) An interesting facet for me is the locations in my hometown of Liverpool. The docks (looks like South end docks to me), Lime St station, Faulkner Square & Bedford Street (both in Toxteth) It shows how bleak the parts of Liverpool were back in the late sixties & early seventies. They bear no comparison to the areas today, which are fairly vibrant. I am sure the Night Club in this film was the Castaways club in Halebank Widnes, by the now defunct Ditton Junction station.

A Liverpool bingo caller of the 70's enlivens his dull life by taking on an old style private detective alter-ego. Complete with raincoat and accent! This is one of my favourite cult movies and this might be a good chance to try and look inside my own mind and find out why. Leading with the negatives, this film has a few ideas, but not enough to make a full film out of them. If you feel that some of the scenes are padding (quite a lot actually) then you are right! Finney fancies himself as a kind of Sam Spade let loose on a Liverpool of the 1970's (interesting to see it like it was in the 60's) and we enter the slightly seedy world of the working man's club. Something that those outside of the UK will find hard to grasp -- a kind of cheap private drinking hole meets low rent cabaret.The real problem is that the thing is weakened by non of the parties (especially the lead) seeming to be taking the case seriously, which means that while he is in limited danger we are more yawning than sitting on the edge of our seats.What makes it for me is the fast word play of Finney and the general irony of the script in going in to places that fashion says we shouldn't be going. It leads up to a giant feeling of so-what -- but I like to see movies that are a bit different and it always holds me in its strange faded and seedy grip. Maybe it has something to do with having been to these sorts of places myself.