General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Pulp (1972 film)

Pulp is a 1972 British satirical thriller written and directed by Mike Hodges, starring Michael Caine as Mickey King, a hack writer of cheap pulp novels who is hired to ghostwrite the autobiography of a washed-up Hollywood actor with Mafia ties, played by Mickey Rooney. It was Hodges's follow-up to Get Carter (1971) and reunited him with Caine and producer Michael Klinger.¹

Key fact	Detail
Director and writer	Mike Hodges, who wrote the original screenplay on spec¹^•²
Cast	Michael Caine (Mickey King), Mickey Rooney (Preston Gilbert), Lionel Stander (Ben Dinuccio), Lizabeth Scott (Princess Betty Cippola), Dennis Price, Al Lettieri¹
Production	Three Michaels Film Productions, Inc., a Klinger/Caine/Hodges production; distributed by United Artists¹
Filming location	Republic of Malta; Italy was originally considered but the shoot was moved to avoid Mafia interference¹^•³
Working titles	Memoirs of a Ghost Writer and Scandal¹
Runtime and rating	92 or 95–96 minutes per AFI (98 minutes per BFI); rated PG¹^•⁴
Music and crew	Original music by George Martin; cinematography by Ousama Rawi; editing by John Glen⁵

Spoilers

Plot and style

Mickey King is a prolific author of tawdry sex and crime novels published under pseudonyms, one of which is "S. Odomy". He accepts a commission to ghostwrite the autobiography of Preston Gilbert, a former movie star who specialized in playing gangsters, has real Mafia connections, and lives in retirement in Malta with his mother, his mistress, and his bodyguard. After Gilbert is murdered at a party, King, inspired by the detectives of his own fiction, investigates the death and crosses paths with a transvestite hit man, a beautiful princess, and a mysterious clairvoyant.⁶^•⁷

The film is narrated throughout by Caine in the hardboiled style of the books King writes, a voiceover device Hodges had used in his 1969 television film Rumour. Most of the opening credits, including the title, appear onscreen letter by letter as if being typed, and the film opens on the words "A Typing Pool somewhere in the Mediterranean" as typists take dictation from Caine's voice.¹^•⁴

Origins

After the success of Get Carter, Michael Klinger offered Hodges various projects that did not appeal to him. Caine, Klinger, and Hodges agreed to work together again and formed the Three Michaels production company, and Hodges chose to write a screenplay speculatively rather than accept a commission; the partners would proceed only if they liked the result. That script was Pulp.²^•⁴

Political roots. Hodges said the idea came from many sources, including his fascination with B movies and with writers such as Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Mickey Spillane. He was shaken by Italian local elections in the early 1970s that showed strong support for a neo-fascist political party, and he described the finished film as "a scream against fascism". He also drew on the 1953 Wilma Montesi scandal, in which a young woman was found drowned on a beach south of Rome and the communist press alleged murder and a political cover-up, and on the observation that many B movies concerned the Mafia, an Italian institution he found close to comic opera in its fascist parallels. His stated approach was satire, "more Fellini than Bertolucci".⁴^•⁸

Production

Although the film is set in Italy, it was shot in Malta; a September 1971 Variety news item reported that Italy was originally considered for the location, and the BFI notes the move was made to avoid Mafia interference. The part of Mickey was written for Caine by Hodges. The end of the film thanks the government and people of Malta, and notes that the funeral-theme music heard during the funeral procession sequence was played by a local Maltese band.¹^•³

The film marked the final feature appearance of Lizabeth Scott, who had not appeared in feature films for some years, and carried the opening credit "And introducing Nadia Cassini", for whom it was an American feature film debut.¹

Reception and standing

Pulp was largely dismissed by early critics as a disappointment after the hard-hitting Get Carter, but it later grew into a cult film with many insider jokes.⁹ On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 77% Tomatometer from 13 reviews and a 38% Popcornmeter audience score from more than 500 ratings.⁶ Later critics have been warmer: Kevin Maher of The Times called it "an underrated comedic masterpiece", and the BFI included it in a list of ten great British thrillers of the 1970s.⁶^•³

Meta-noir. MoMA's program note describes the film as a satirical sendup of John Huston's crime movies and says it "manages to out-meta Pulp Fiction", quoting Howard Hampton: it belongs to a line of irreverent noir deviations from The Big Sleep (1946) to Jean-Luc Godard's Made in USA (1966) without mimicking them, and contains choreographed mishaps and baroque grotesqueries that would not be out of place in films by Jacques Tati or Federico Fellini.¹⁰ TCM places it among a string of 1970s private eye movies that spend as much time referencing old films as generating new plots, and notes that Caine relished performing with older actors, such as Rooney, whom he had first seen in childhood movie matinees.⁷ Reviewers have also noted the film's use of giallo signifiers, including red herrings and murders with inexplicable elements, and the location cinematography of Ousama Rawi, for whom Pulp was a first feature film.¹¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1970s › Released 1970 to 1976

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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