Clegg (also known as The Bullet Machine, Clegg Private Eye and Harry and the Hookers) is a 1970 British crime film directed by Lindsay Shonteff and starring Gilbert Wynne in his first starring film role. It was written by Lewis J. Hagleton.
Ex-policeman and now private detective Harry Clegg is hired by wealthy businessman Lord Cruickshank to investigate a death-threat letter he has received, which leads to a string of murders, some by Clegg himself.
The film was shot in various locations around London including the Docklands and Highgate Cemetery, as well as in Paris.
Shonteff said in an interview: "It was made for peanuts [and] my blood ...The final budget wasÃÂ [$26,500 American] for a colour 35mm feature, which meant making a lot of tough deals, paying people very little money, and shooting in four weeks. But we finished it and the picture did okay."
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A pathetic attempt to transplant the private eye thriller to the British scene, high on violence and low on style. The hero's attempts to deliver his sub-Chandlerian wisecracks with the weary cynicism of a Philip Marlowe are merely embarrassing, while Lindsay Shonteff's idea of direction seems to be to squeeze in as many massive close-ups of guns, telephones and osculating lips as possible. 'It happens in all the Bogart movies,' says Clegg at one point: the trouble is that there it happens so much better."