The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery

Gabriel Dell is the owner of a chicken hatchery who wants to be a private eye. When a local man is killed by an arrow, he is hired by the widow to investigate.

It's a burlesque of hard-boiled mysteries, co-written by Dell and director Dean Hargrove. Dell wanders around, self-narrating, looking for clues, amidst the locals, all of whom are eccentrics: nymphomaniacal widows, pill-popping doctors, fake psychics, capped by a shootout in which he and "Big Daddy" Vincent Gardenia blast each other with shotguns, spurting blood and walking away with a band-aid over their eyebrows. It's a little too broad for the actual jokes, making it seemed far more forced, especially with a cast that includes Will Geer, Barbara Harris, Huntz Hall, Jackie Coogan, and Howard Storm.

Dean Hargrove went back to tv work after this.

It's a parody of The Maltese Falcon. Must pay attention to the clever humor.

Offbeat, peculiar, funny and pretty dead-on parody of private-eye film clichès (plus, in one memorable sequence, of Sam Peckinpah-type blood-gushing shootouts). This film finds its tone, a sort of straight-faced absurdism, right from the start and sticks with it to the end; it's almost like an American Monty Python movie. Gabriel Dell has the perfect gruff voice for his plentiful pseudo-tough-guy voiceovers; Anjanette Comer is ethereal (shown through deliberately hazy filters, to boot); Nita Talbot has a VERY sexy striptease sequence; but the most amusing character is probably a bartender who speaks exlusively in epigrams. *** out of 4.

Gabriel Dell and Huntz Hall, original members of the Broadway stage play Dead End (1935) and the film version two years later, reteamed as a successful nightclub comedy act in the seventies after a successful run in several film series during the 30's, 40's, and 50's which included the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, The East Side Kids, and The Bowery Boys. This "reunion" film died at the box office and though it has moments of hilarity, I recommend it for fans of the Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys only.

The cast for "The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery" is a very unusual hodgepodge...a virtual who's who of strange character actors. First, is stars Gabriel Dell...one of the old East Side Kids/Bowery Boys actors. He had a lot of movie credits but was never leading man material...and it's odd they made him the lead in this movie. Huntz Hall (also of the East Side Kids and Bowery Boys) is in the film as well. There also are Dick Gautier (Hymie the Robot from "Get Smart"), Joyce Van Patten (Dick's sister), Nick Colasanto (Coach from "Cheers"), Will Geer (Grandpa Walton), Jackie Coogan (child actor and Uncle Fester from "The Addams Family"), Sorrell Booke (Boss Hog from "The Dukes of Hazzard") and more. There really isn't much rhyme or reason for the choices...and I'd REALLY like to know more about the production of this movie.

The story is a weird reworking of "The Maltese Falcon". But instead of the cool Sam Spade, the private detective went to a mail order detective school and runs a chicken farm! It begins with a new client, a milkman, being killed with an arrow as Malcolm interviews him! The plot leads to him discovering that the milkman had a weird animal fetish! Clearly this is NOT Dashiell Hammett (the guy who wrote "The Maltest Falcon")! Instead, it's a comedy...and a very low budget and strange one at that!

The comedy in this one is essentially weirdness...not the usual laughs or funny situations. And, one character after another after another are weirdos...all the while, Malcolm reacts as if it's all very normal. For example, the 'grieving widow' takes off her clothes....revealing some very sexy underwear. When Malcolm tries to kiss her, she responds that she has no idea where he got the idea of kissing her...she's NOT that type of woman! There's also the son of some local bigshot...who constantly spits on Malcolm's shoes. None of it makes any sense and the movie might fit into the French Absurdist category (with films such as "Buffet Froid")...and like an Absurdist picture, some of the weird non-sensical style could become a bit tiresome after a while. But fortunately, the vignettes come one after another after another...so the tiresome ones are soon replaced by funny ones (such as Will Geer playing a horrible doctor and Nick Colasanto as a platitude-spouting bartender). I thought it was occasionally funny...and it's certainly NOT for all tastes. Heck, it's not for most tastes! Overall, I'd say it's worth seeing if you are a person with a taste for the ultra-weird and would be best viewed with like-minded friends. It's not especially good but it has a certain wacky enjoyability about it...and the ending...wow is that weird!!