Shot and cut in a harsh, realist style that alternates nervous, jumpy sequences with long, brooding takes, it was directed in 1972 by and co-stars Robert Culp, along with his I Spy partner, Bill Cosby. I promise you, this one of those movies where you’ll wonder why no one seems to know about it. Working from an early, laconic screenplay by Walter Hill who went on to write and/or direct such movies as Hard Times, 48 Hours, The Warriors, and The Getaway, this was Culp’s first and only directing effort, but it shows an edgy expertise. We get a seedy, comprehensive taste of L.A.’s underbelly, and some fully rounded performances from his cast, which includes James Woods as a hyper, boyish prosecutor and Michael Moriarty as an oily mobster, both in one of their first films. Long available only in a lousy, grainy transfer, a terrific, restored print is now available in HD.

 

Cosby and Culp play the titular private eyes as a couple of divorced, worn-out losers down to their last dime, and maybe their last hope. We meet them in a nameless gin joint drinking their lunch and discussing whether they can afford to keep their phone. They can’t--not until a “Mr. Rice” calls with a job offer. Hickey (Cosby) finds Mr. Rice sunbathing in Speedos on the beach, all leathery tan and whitened teeth and queasily close to a children’s swing set. Rice wants the boys to find a mysterious woman named Mary Jane, and he’s willing to pay a bit too much for it. Hickey and Boggs end up following a chain of bodies, mobsters, a doomed downtown florist with a buried secret, a Chicano gang, and members of a radical group similar to the Black Panthers, all having something to do with half a million in missing loot from a Pittsburgh bank heist.

 

Where the hugely successful ‘60s series I Spy was a breezy spoof playing to Culp and Cosby’s comedic abilities, here the tone is relentlessly dark, in spite—or maybe because—of the relentless southland sunshine. In fact, there’s a certain irony in including this in the noir canon: Where classic noir relied on shadows and dark, rain-wet cityscapes, here we’re treated to a mainly daylight tour of a painfully bleached and soulless ‘70s Los Angeles, from the sun-blinding sands of Santa Monica, to a barren L.A. Coliseum, to the soiled, cracked cement of the downtown district. It’s a time when the Rams still played at the Coliseum, which is the setting for a tense and sloppy three-way gunfight. The framing and editing of this sequence heighten the sense of confusion and dislocation, as Mary Jane, our PIs, and various hoodlums pop in and out of view, each trying to stay hidden and make sense of where the others are. Another equally gripping set-piece, a car to car shoot-out, takes place in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, while a night game is in progress. In a nod to the ephemeral nature of the Southland, Boggs goes to meet with one of the radical groups in a Malibu house high above Pacific Coast Highway, the earth eroded away from under its million-dollar, ocean view patio. The next time he goes out there to follow up, the house itself is gone, having fallen off the cliff.

 

Both Hickey and Boggs are still pathetically in love with their ex-wives; but Boggs’ ex is a stripper, and the only way she’ll let him see her now is along with everyone else, as a paying customer at the strip joint. Meanwhile, Hickey attempts with ham-handed humor to win back his wife, a terrific Rosalind Cash. In one of the bleaker moments in the film, when she finally agrees to let down her guard and come to his place, it can’t have happened at a worse time. Cosby brings some real depth and pathos to his situation, in one of the best performances of his career. It’s one of Culp’s best as well. Together, they are completely believable as old friends who end up with nothing in the world but each other to hang on to.

 

That’s not to say there isn’t some understated humor. At one point, an iconic “Go see Cal!” car commercial is playing on the TV in the dive bar they frequent. Along with their muted sarcasm about what they owe on their houses and cars and how inadequate their guns are, there are some amusing running gags, such as their various attempts to avoid paying for parking, and plenty of off-color bad guys in bad ‘70s hair and wardrobe.

 

As with any good noir, the story is fragmented and convoluted, with desperate men and women in desperate situations, none of which they completely understand or can control. The real pleasure, however, is in seeing these actors successfully going against type, and in revisiting a lost time in a lost Los Angeles. If you like Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer series, you’re going to love Hickey and Boggs.