I just watched a film-noir comedy called
Peeper ("peeper" apparently being a 1940's slang expression for private detective) staring Michael Caine and Natalie Wood, and directed by Peter Hyams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peeper_(film)Peeper is a 1975 American mystery comedy film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Michael Caine as Leslie C. Tucker, a bungling private investigator.[5] It was a send-up of 1940s film noir. Peeper was a box-office failure that jeopardized Hyams's career and almost prevented him from obtaining funding to produce Capricorn One.
Hyams said he "managed to combine critical and commercial failure. And that made me colder than ice. Nobody wanted me."
I'm glad it didn't ruin Hyams' career, because he went on to do a number of movies I've really enjoyed, such as
Telefon, Outland, 2010: Odyssey Two, Timecop, and
End of Days.
Outland in particular is one I felt it was visually gorgeous, realistic, with well-played politics and humor throughout. And outstanding performances by Sean Connery, Peter Boyle and many others.
Hyams' self-deprecating remarks were particularly funny. John Carpenter took a more permanent hit to his career after his 1982 new version of
The Thing, that I thought was a great movie, I've re-watched many times, and never understood why it was so panned at the time. But critics have come around and now acclaim
The Thing as a great movie, but not soon enough to repair the permanent damage to John Carpenter's career.
