The Cheap Detective

Writer Neil Simon takes his Bogart tribute character Lou Peckinpaugh (Peter Falk) into the Casablanca mode, introducing Scatman Crothers, James Coco, David Ogden Stiers, Nicol Williamson the Nazi, but mostly Eileen Brennan as chanteuse Betty DeBoop, in The Cheap Detective, 1978.

Peter Falk as writer Neil Simon’s parody private-eye Lou Peckinpaugh meets second-billed Ann-Margret, as Jezebel Dezire, and Sid Caesar as her less-functional husband Ezra, much talked-about but introduced a full hour into the film, in the Bogart-based The Cheap Detective, 1978.

Still in the Maltese Falcon segment of Neil Simon's loving Bogart send-up, Peter Falk as San Francisco gumshoe Lou Peckinpaugh, following the murder of his partner, meets Madeline Kahn as multi-phasic Carmen, Mary Astor and many others, in The Cheap Detective, 1978.

Writer Neil Simon opens the follow-up to the parody Murder By Death, with schtick for San Francisco cops Vic Tayback and Abe Vigoda, with loose Maltese Falcon elements, setting the stage for Peter Falk, leading man in the Bogart tribute mash-up The Cheap Detective, 1978.