Pulp (1972) – DVD

**/**** Image C+ Sound B
starring Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lionel Stander, Lizabeth Scott
written and directed by Mike Hodges

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Pulp is so determined to not work on any level that you almost admire it in light of the effort. It's neither a parody of nor a tribute to the pulp genre, neither comedy-thriller nor thrilling comedy–it's just a freak that repeatedly falls flat on its face, leaving you with no choice but to grasp it close like an idiot child. The first time I saw this film, I was mostly annoyed by its determination to short-circuit the fun that might have come from genre trappings, not to mention its refusal to offer genuine alternatives. With a second viewing, it looks a little better, and though not a success, it earned my admiration for being so far out of its depth that a bit of pleasure at its expense was unavoidable. It may have earned an extra half-star were it not also sexist and homophobic in dated ways that have risen to the surface like yeast.

Taking place "somewhere in the Mediterranean" (a closing dedication reveals that somewhere as Malta), the film deals with pulp novelist Mickey King (Michael Caine), who speaks his lurid volumes onto tape, leaving typing pools appalled by their "stimulating" content. The main event begins when King becomes aware of someone tailing him just as he's paid a visit by mobsterish Ben Dinuccio (Lionel Stander). Dinuccio speaks for a famous party seeking a ghostwriter for an autobiography, and before he knows it, King is on a package tour to an island destination to be named later. Murder ensues along the way, and our man knows the killer's knife had his name on it–but he doesn't know why. Until, that is, he arrives at the island and finds diminutive gangster/movie star Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney) ready to spill his guts about everything–except, of course, the terrible thing that King must sleuth out late in the picture.

All of this is serviceable plotting for either a straight thriller or a satire of one, but Pulp never figures out what it wants to be. The former category–occupied by Get Carter, the preceding pairing of Pulp writer-director Mike Hodges and star Caine–is pretty much scotched by the lack of strong action montage and Caine's jokey voice-over ("He was constipated with pulp, and it was coming out all over me"). Yet the film isn't timed properly for comedy, either: the various grotesques of the script (Gilbert, Dinuccio, the childish "Mediterranean" locals) don't do bits so much as stagger drunkenly across the screen while spewing clumsy non-witticisms. If there's a genre for the movie, it's best described as "vulgarian"–for the overplaying of the cast, the oversizing of the caricatures, the general leering attitude towards women, and the one nasty bit in which Caine/King contemptuously discovers that a fellow traveller is "a fag, a transvestite."

Still, the lack of focus is strangely compelling, regardless of whether you like what you're watching. It's not often that so many people make such total fools of themselves: everybody in the movie is pretty much bogged down in mocking mush, and they're left to flail about in the viscous ineptitude without anyone to throw them a lifesaver. For his part, Caine's Mickey leaves nothing standing. His voiceover is self-deprecating even as it deprecates everybody else (and even as it explains everything the filmmakers are too oafish to communicate on their own): everybody's a joke in this movie; coupled with the lack of narrative and aesthetic bedrock, the whole thing seems a rare exercise in filmic chaos. I can't exactly say that Pulp is good, but compare this fertile fizzle with what passes for a middling fizzle these days and it'll have you singing its praises.

THE DVD
MGM's disc is a disappointment considering the unlikelihood that sales will ever merit a remastering. The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image is dupey-looking, with a tape source obviously having intervened somewhere between the film's transfer and its DVD mastering, resulting in a slight ghosting effect throughout. Pulp's muddy, cheap stock already presents a mastering challenge at the outset, and the best you can say is that although the saturated browns and salmons constantly threaten to devolve into murk, they never do. Likewise, the Dolby 2.0 mono audio is fighting an uphill battle with the hollow, tinny original mix, though tender ears will not be violated by too much lack of clarity. There are no extras.

96 minutes; PG; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 2.0 (Stereo), English DD 2.0 (Mono), Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, French subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; MGM