Gumshoe is a 1971 British black comedy film directed (in his debut) by Stephen Frears and starring Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw and Frank Finlay.

Eddie Ginley works at a bingo hall in Liverpool, England, but dreams of becoming a stylish private investigator like those he has read about and seen in films.

... Gumshoe [is] an extraordinarily difficult film to review, mainly because its various levels are so closely dovetailed that any attempt to take them apart leaves one with limp, meaningless strands in one's hands.

...Everything in the film – Stephen Frears' first feature – is exactly right, from the throbbing Forties score down to the end of the cast list (with Fulton Mackay stealing any honours Finney leaves behind) and the brilliantly self-effacing direction; but its most remarkable achievement is perhaps that behind all the jokes and flurries, another Eddie peeps through, vulnerable, lonely and despairing.

At the end, sitting with his hat tipped rakishly over his eyes listening to a rock-and-roll record, he is Sam Spade again; but nothing can quite efface the memory of the hurt, lost child whose brother melted down his toy soldiers to sell the lead and who was betrayed by the girl he loved.