Hickey & Boggs

Hickey & Boggs

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Customer Reviews

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Reviewed by L. Cabos, 2010-01-16

Saw this on release in the theatres back in the day and have always wondered why it never hit DVD. Two low-life P.I.'s on the verge of going under suddenly get a shot at the big time. Interesting character study with Cosby and Culp in top form. Wait for a good copy from the studio or download from Amazon.

Worst DVD release I've ever seen -- movie is great, however.

Reviewed by Tom O'Bedlam, 2009-02-05

The movie is great but your enjoyment will be ruined by the absolutely horrible quality of the DVD. This is not just bad, it's basically unwatchable, like those bootlegs that people sell on street corners or the "public domain" knockoffs you find in the 99-cent store.

I would petition one of the "retro movie" cable channels to show it and/or the movie company that produced it to release a professional, WIDESCREEN edition of this forgotten 70s classic. This DVD release will, sadly, keep the movie a "forgotten classic."

There's even a typo in the text on the cover of the case! Now that's pretty lame!

Detectives Aren't Heroes Anymore.

Reviewed by mirasreviews, 2007-04-09

A few years after their successful run as partners in espionage on television's "I Spy", Robert Culp and Bill Cosby teamed up for "Hickey & Boggs", a cynical 1972 neo-noir that Culp directed. Far from the adventurous, optimistic duo that Culp and Cosby portrayed in "I Spy", Al Hickey (Bill Cosby) and Frank Boggs (Robert Culp) are private investigators with a dearth of clients and abundance of personal problems. They are hired by a Mr. Rice (Lester Fletcher) to locate a woman named Mary Jane Bower and given a short list of her known acquaintances. The first person on the list is found dead, the bodies pile up, the guns get bigger, and the police lose their patience with the detectives' habit of withholding evidence. But Mary Jane (Carmen) seems to be the key to the loot from a big armored car heist, so Hickey and Boggs keep plugging away, with a $25,000 reward at stake and little left to lose.

"Hickey & Boggs" excels in presenting the private investigator as an emasculated relic, barely able to make a living, at odds with the police, relegated by laws and modernity to being "nothing but process servers". The opposite in many ways of the pre-WWII heroic detectives like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Even their antiquated firearms illustrate the obsolescence of the P.I.. This isn't a respectable profession any more. Ex-cop Hickey and world-weary, alcoholic Boggs take their clients' money, unconcerned that they are criminals. No one is especially sympathetic, and it is difficult to say who is victim and who is predator, as the fences, Mary Jane, and the detectives seem to be both. The unremitting cynicism and enfeebled protagonists aren't to everyone's taste, but they are typical of film noir of the 1970s.

The first half of "Hickey & Boggs" is riddled with short, out-of-context scenes of Mary Jane's activities that don't make sense until later. The confusion diminishes somewhat as the film progresses, but the plot never does entirely come together. Mary Jane and her partner must fence the money, because the bills are too big for them to spend. But the actions of the various fences who compete for the money don't make sense. Mary Jane is trying to break $1000 bills, which were taken out of circulation in 1969 and had not been printed since 1945. Those look like new bills in the movie. This story didn't need to be as disjointed as it is. I would excuse the confusion early in the film if it reflected the detectives' state of mind, but it really doesn't, because they are following a different trail of evidence. Nevertheless, "Hickey & Boggs" is a heavy dose of pessimism that will more than satisfy the misanthrope in anyone.

The DVD (AIP Studios 2004): This is a terrible transfer of a terrible print. It is very grainy and actually fuzzy. Some additional problems occur around the one-hour mark: At 56 minutes, the picture jumps a few times. At 59 minutes, there are wide bands across the top of the screen. At 1 hour, 5 minutes, there are some thin white lines. Suffice it to say that the picture is bad, but it's watchable. Don't buy this disc unless you absolutely have to have the film. The only bonus features are text bios of Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, which include selected filmographies.

A forgotten Noir from the early seventies

Reviewed by Hiram Gomez Pardo, 2007-01-20


Robert Culp and Bill Cosby were the well reminded protagonists of that famous and renowned TV series: "I'm spy", and thence came this inspiration.

Impoverished private detectives (By the way, an absolute requisite for this profession,) are hired for $ 20 a day by an effeminate lawyer to locate his girl friend. But the initial search is full of obstacles, because every contact is killed. So the own detectives are considered the main suspicions.

But through the investigation it will be carved in relief Mary is far to be precisely an angel, being just the peak of a very intriguing tale of heist, corruption, vengeance and extortion. Watch to James Wood in a brief role as Lt Wyatt.

But beware: they will be the only survivors due or perhaps the fact of their minuscule importance.

3 down 2 to go

Reviewed by P. Levakis, 2005-04-16

Having read the various reviews of the Hickey & Boggs dvd I have decided to wait to get the dvd until a quality print is available. I saw this movie when it was released in the theatres. It is one of my 5 movies from that era that are on my list to own. The others are The Long Goodbye, Point Blank, Vanishing Point(all finally on dvd) H & B and Darker Than Amber. I have a poor quality uncut version of Darker w/ Dutch subtitles on VHS and I have a fairly good copy Of Hickey & Boggs I made from TCM that I recorded on DVD. Once a good DVD of Darker (uncut) is released and Hickey & Boggs my quest will be fullfiled. By all means if only a good VHS of H & B is available, get it. The movie is a classic