Another Great Police Story Directed by Don Siegel

claudio_carvalho

In the harbor of San Francisco, a porter throws the suitcase of a passenger that has just arrived from Asia into a taxi and the driver hits a truck and a police officer that kills him before dying. The owner Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey) explains to the police Lieutenant Ben Guthrie (Warner Anderson) and Inspector Al Quine (Emile Meyer) that the content of the suitcase are antiques that he bought in Asia from a street vendor. However the police laboratory discover that one statuette has heroin hidden inside and the inspectors replace the drug per sugar and return the suitcase to Dressler, who is a citizen above suspicion. Meanwhile the gangster Dancer (Eli Wallach), who is a psychopath; his partner Julian (Robert Keith) and the alcoholic driver Sandy McLain (Richard Jaeckel) are hired by the kingpin The Man (Vaughn Taylor) to collect the heroin packages that have been smuggled hidden in the luggage of three other innocent tourists. They succeed to retrieve the two firsts, but the load of the third one vanishes and they panic. Meanwhile the police is hunting them under the command of Lt. Guthrie.

"The Lineup" is another great police story directed by Don Siegel. The story is original and the action scenes in San Francisco are impressive for a 1958 film. The dysfunctional criminals are peculiar and Eli Wallach performs a psychopath killer; Robert Keith takes notes of the last words of Dancer's victims in a notebook; and Richard Jaeckel is an alcoholic driver. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Sádico Selvagem" ("The Wild Sadist")

score 7/10

claudio_carvalho 11 June 2016

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3485818/