The Cheap Detective (1978)
This bizarre Noir parody from the late seventies sought to parody films starring Humphrey Bogart--particularly Casablanca and Noir classic The Maltese Falcon. The film follows quirky private detective Lou Peckinpaugh as he tries to prove to the police that he did not kill his partner while at the same time being besieged by a cast of bizarre characters that are written as playful jabs at noir tropes. Eventually the plot travels through a fun-house mirrored version of both the main films it means to parody (Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon) and finishes with Lou riding off into the metaphorical sunset with a gaggle of women are all in love with him for no reason. To name just a few of the film's characters and what they specifically parody, the main cast consists of:
Lou Peckinpaugh
The Cheap Detective himself, Lou is often the straight man to the other characters' off-the-walls personalities. However, his character critiques depictions of masculinity and sexuality in Films Noir through his contradictory relationship to sex. Lou displays the signature Noir lead's lust and sexual drive, and this is played up in a scene where he rotates between trying to get rid of three our of the four women in his apartment that are all trying to jump his bones. There's a bit of contradiction to Lou's relationship with sexuality though, as another running gag in the film is that he can't stand to hear about the sex lives of any of his potential female partners. In this way, The Cheap Detective pokes fun at the simultaneous hypermasculinity and masculine fragility surrounding sex within Films Noir.
Mrs. Montenegro?
I've listed this character's name with a question mark because the film never lets us learn real name. This uncertainty is intentional, as it's one of her running gags that she literally cannot or will settle on a name or identity. In the scene where she meets Lou to hire him, she calls herself Wanda Coleman, Chloe Lamar, Alma Chalmers, Alma Palmers, Vivienne Priselle, and Carmen Monengro before saying "That's my last one, I promise!" (11:01). In terms of plot, she takes the place of Brigid O'Shaugnessey as she hires the detective for the case under false pretenses in a ruthless search for a treasure. Her character both praises and pokes fun at the Femme Fatale's deceptiveness, as Mrs. Montenegro is so deceptive that her ruses become immediately obvious.
Georgia Merkle
The widow of Lou's late partner, Georgia's defining characteristics are her inability to display any sort of subtlety and her excessive love for Lou. Her lack of subtlety is displayed through a running gag where Georgia is constantly leading the police to Lou. Her excessive love manifests in the times she attempts to shoot and kill Lou and others because Lou has rejected her advances. These aspects of her character, along with the campy, dramatic way Marsha Mason delivers her lines suggests that Georgia's character pokes fun at the way women were often portrayed as being ruled by their emotions. While her character might have been presented more seriously in an actual Noir film, Georgia's lack of subtlety and verbal quips signify that her excessive emotion turned murderous drive is meant to be played for laughs.
Betty Deboop
Betty is a jazz singer that, like all of the other women on this character list, starts a relationship with Lou shortly after they meet. She's the most brash and openly sexual of all the characters, and is often the one Lou is closing his ears to when she begins talking about sex. Her character seems to harken to the sexual illicitness traditional Noir films sought to stir as well as the common trope for women in Noir to be nightclub performers, such as Rita in The Big Combo. Like Rita, Betty is endlessly devoted to the male protagonist, though in this version that's mean to be more a joke since the audience is aware Lou has four relationships going on at once. Overall, Betty's character represents a keen awareness to and appreciation of classical Noir ideas about sexuality, but trivializes a lot of what was considered so taboo through Betty's brash and open discussion of her sexual activity.
Bess Duffy
Bess works as Lou's secretary, and portrays the Noir trope of the plucky, innocent secretary pretty faithfully. One main deviation, though, is that Bess and Lou also almost have sex in Lou's apartment. She ends up as part of Lou's harem-like squadron at the end of the film. Her character takes the image of the demure, supportive secretary and inserts sex comedy into it to help create an of joviality as well as critique.
The characters in The Cheap Detective take existing Noir tropes and play them up to a characture (Lou, Mrs. Montenegro, Georgia, Betty), or approach them and apply a sexual twist to create comedy (Lou, Betty, Bess). This could be read as an indication of changing attitudes towards sexuality, masculinity, and an overall shift of what should be read as serious and what was up for parody. Regardless, being made in the late seventies the film alludes to the rise of neo-noir, as James Naremore states that a wave of Noir parodies in the 70's and 80's "were roughly contemporary with the rise of neo-noir" (Naremore 201). If this is true, then that means that more modern Noir parodies like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang function as anomalies to this rule.