Remember I Spy, the popular television series that starred Robert Culp and Bill Cosby as two undercover agents traveling the globe on special assignments? Well, after a four-year hiatus, Culp and Cosby were finally reunited, but not on a new series of I Spy episodes. Instead, they were cast as the private eye team of Hickey and Boggs (1972). And oh, how things have changed. Gone are the glamorous international settings and the easygoing camaraderie between its two male leads that distinguished I Spy from other television series of its era. (And let's not forget that I Spy was also the first serious dramatic series on television to feature a black leading man.)

In Hickey and Boggs, we get a detective team consisting of a disillusioned alcoholic (Culp) and a fairweather father (Cosby), consumed with guilt and regret over his failed marriage. Two fun guys, right? Of course, they're relatively happy campers compared to some of the sick customers they have to tangle with. In fact, one of the heavies in Hickey and Boggs is so twisted, he pauses from ransacking an apartment to torture a Barbie doll. But consider the source - a screenplay by Walter Hill, the director of such fatalistic thrillers as The Long Riders (1980) and Southern Comfort (1981).

Hickey and Boggs was Hill's first solo screenplay credit (he had previously worked as an assistant director on such films as Bullitt, 1968, and The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) and, like most of his early films, it has a gritty realism that reflects the darker aspects of life. Perhaps this was one reason the film failed to find its audience. Hickey and Boggs aren't superheroes at all but two flawed human beings who drink too much, have lousy relationships with women, and barely scrape by on their meager detective salaries.

If you're in the mood for a modern day film noir, you can't do much better than Hickey and Boggs, which takes place, appropriately enough, in Los Angeles. By the way, the film is also directed by Robert Culp, which marks his only directorial credit to date. And yes, that is James Woods in one of his earliest film appearances.

Producer: Fouad Said
Director: Robert Culp
Screenplay: Walter Hill
Cinematography: Bill Butler
Costume Design: Pauline Campbell, William Theiss, Bill Thiese
Film Editing: David Berlatsky
Original Music: Ted Ashford
Principal Cast: Bill Cosby (Al Hickey), Robert Culp (Frank Boggs), Rosalind Cash (Nyona), Ta-Ronce Allen (Nyona's Daughter), Lou Frizzell (Lawyer), Sheila Sullivan (Edith Boggs), Michael Moriarty (Ballard), Vincent Gardenia (Papadakis), Ed Lauter (Ted), James Woods (Lieutenant Wyatt).
BW-111m.

by Jeff Stafford