Kaiser Lupowitz

KAISER LUPOWITZ is the gumshoe in Woody Allen's apparently affectionate parodies/tributes of/to the hardboiled private eye tale. Yes, that Woody Allen. And what's more, he seems to know what he's shooting at, scoring direct bull's eyes on the work of all the usual suspects, including Hammett, Chandler and Spillane.

In his first recorded case, "Mr. Big", he's on a missing person's job. Run-of-the-mill stuff, except the the missing person is God. In his only other appearance to date, "The Whore of Mensa", he goes up against a ruthless gang of intellectual hookers. Both stories are real hoots. Definitely worth looking for.

Allen obviously enjoys the genre, because he returned to it in 2001's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, which he wrote and directed, as well as starred in, playing C.W. Briggs, an insurance dick whose feathers get ruffled by a pretty efficiency expert (Helen Hunt).

THE EVIDENCE

"I like being a private eye, and even though once in a while, I've had my gums massaged with an automobile jack, the sweet smell of greenbacks makes it all worthwhile. Not to mention the dames."

SHORT STORIES

"Mr. Big" (1971, Getting Even)...Buy this book
"The Whore of Mensa" (December 16, 1974, New Yorker)
Collected in "Without Feathers," 1975...Buy this book

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.