I’m still up in the air about this one. Given it had certain comedic qualities about it. The really bad sexual puns. All of the inappropriate touching and fondling and sucking. I didn’t expect the plot to be Oscar worthy, but it was catchy.

So Mr. Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) plays a detective who is hired by the beautiful Juliet Forrest to investigate her father’s untimely death. His investigation leads him to encounter several of the 1930’s best actors/actresses in edited format. Of course he falls in love with Juliet despite Marlowe’s warnings that you should never ever fall in love with a client and that falling in love with a client gets you killed.  Classic plot line then of they fall in love, he tells her he’s ready to settle down after they solve the case, then she overhears him speaking to an ex using the same lines, except she doesn’t realize he’s talking about her!  He drinks himself into a stupor until Marlowe calls with a lead and he flies off.  The lead inevitably helps him solve the case, Rigby and Juliet are reunited and end with a big kiss finale.  Not too brain tickling.

One thing kept making me roll my eyes and wondering what the hell.  Seriously.  When he was younger, his dad ran off with the cleaning lady and his mother died of a broken heart.  From then on every time he heard the term ‘cleaning lady’ he went berserk and tried to strangle whomever said it.  Ohhkay.  I guess it comes into play and makes more sense at the end but whatever.

I thought it was hilarious when Juliet makes her debut appearance and faints at the sight of the newspaper headline.  He looks around and then kisses her passionately, puts her on the couch and then fondles her breasts.  She asks what he’s doing and innocently he responds “Your breasts fell into an awkward position when you fainted, I was adjusting them.” It was just such a random thing to do (and yes, terribly inappropriate).  Later on in the movie Juliet is reading a name or acronym off of a sheet of paper her father left behind and asks “What’s fochs?” to which Steve Martin begins to explain “Well, it’s when a man and a woman who love each other become intimate and he puts his…” Hm, somebody’s got sex on the brain!

Overall I wasn’t terribly impressed with the movie.  I didn’t laugh as hard  or as much as I had expected to.  So that was disappointing but I did enjoy the film to the extent that I’d probably be willing to watch it again.