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Finally treated myself to the Columbia Pictures Noir Classics box set featuring THE LINEUP, one of the pivotal movies I saw as a child that burned into the memory cells to the point of trauma. The story goes that me and my eight or nine year old brothers were left in the care of a babysitter who permitted us to watch something other than the "sports, PBS, or nothing" mandate which comprised TV viewing choices in our household. We *lived* to abuse the rule and babysitters were easy pickings for unauthorized TV. She never returned to sit with us again once my dad found out what she'd let us watch, God bless her.
We had no idea what we were seeing and at first it didn't seem any different than maybe "Dragnet" -- Cops and robbers, with old looking cars & hats, as ordinary as it gets. But by the time the bad guys were menacing the little girl over powdering her doll with the stuff hidden inside of it we were hysterical, and the old dude in the wheelchair getting pushed to his death shoved me over the top right along with him. I remember my younger brother trying to reassure me that it was all make-believe but by the end of the movie I was history, and one thing was for sure: I never forgot the experience even if I didn't catch its name. I was 8 and didn't know movies had names until STAR WARS.
Tried in vain to figure out what the movie was titled for years ("the gangster movie with the guy in the wheelchair" didn't get me very far with video store clerks) until stumbling upon a description of Eli Wallach's "Dancer" character on a bio writeup for him. Knew it was the movie instantly and am rewarded to find the shock sequences just as brutal and potentially disturbing as they were 35 years ago. I doubt the movie was even cut for the TV screening we caught as it was the images of people falling to horrible deaths that did me in. Have always had a fear of heights and here may be a component of how it began.
As for the movie itself it's not so much a "film noir" potboiler as it is half a dry police procedural about noble San Francisco homicide cops on the trail of a vicious gangland killer. Marvelously square and by the book. But mixed in with it and eventually wresting control of the narrative is one of the most fascinating studies in psychopathic behavior to find its way on screen. Eli Wallach's killer is easily as frightening as Andy Robinson would later be in director Don Siegel's masterpiece DIRTY HARRY, though for different reasons.
One reason is that unlike Robinson's "Killer" we actually have a chance to sort of get to know & maybe even like Dancer. With shades of Wallach's later equally psycho Tuco character from THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY surfacing in the steam room when he asks a thug who tried to cross him "You think that'll cover it?" Richard Jaeckel also comes to life as a "Wheel Man" (great 50's cop movie lingo cheezy hood names all over this baby) who is just as crazy & promises to get them out of 'Frisco after the heat drops its net.
The film also bears an eyebrow raising similarity to another great San Francisco cop movie, BULLITT, including the dry police procedural of tracking an unknown mob connected killer, travelogue tourist footage of 'Frisco contrasted with the dingy drab tenement rooms its characters inhabit, and both films climaxing with riveting car chases along the scenic routes showing off the city at its most unromantic & frenzied light. I didn't even mind the rear projection screen footage and by golly found myself rooting for these maniacs to actually get away. You will too.
Maybe because they were more interesting than the cops who are as square (there's that word again!), by the book and incorruptible as saints to the point of satire. Even though Dancer was a psychopath and a spree killer run amok he wasn't a greedy guy. Had his set of rules & played by them, and as long as you didn't get in his way or try to cross him he could be charming for a few minutes. Then he'd waste you because that was his job, he was good at it, and even enjoyed it. No hard feelings?
9/10
score 9/10
Squonkamatic 16 April 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2414248/ |
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24-2-2021 18:06:17