Sittenpolizei

Vice Squad takes a documentary style approach to a single day in a police captain's life and what he might encounter.

Of course the murder of a police officer doesn't ever qualify as an ordinary day, but even on those days when an entire force is mobilized looking for a cop killer, still more mundane matters intervene.

Edward G. Robinson was in his B film period which is roughly between All My Sons and The Ten Commandments. Still Robinson always brought a certain class to the films he was doing and Vice Squad is no exception.

Second billed in the cast is Paulette Goddard who is a madam at a bordello. She was on a blacklist of sorts herself at the time, not for politics, but because she had antagonized the powerful Cecil B. DeMille during the shooting of The Unconquered. Her career was winding down, but she would be marrying Erich Maria Remarque and be leaving the screen shortly for Switzerland.

Goddard and Robinson have a nice bond between them. It's obvious he lets her operate because she can be most valuable as a snitch in a pinch. In fact she does come through with some information that starts the case being cracked.

Funny though, ten years earlier Robinson and Goddard as co-stars would have commanded an A list budget, even five years earlier. Hollywood could be very fickle at times.

Still for a B police drama, Vice Squad has an impressive cast list of quality players. Best in the film is Porter Hall, a two timing funeral director who Robinson knows saw something, but won't crack because he was spending a night with his girlfriend instead of being out of town as he told his wife. How they manage to keep him 'in the system' so to speak is really quite ingenious much to the exasperation of his lawyer, Barry Kelley who runs a close second to Hall.

Mixed in with the hunt for a cop killer are more routine matters like exposing a phony Italian count, dealing with Percy Helton's imaginary crimes and a TV interview for publicity's sake. All in the life of a Vice Squad captain.

Fans of Edward G. Robinson and Paulette Goddard will like what they see and Vice Squad is a nice tightly scripted and edited police drama.

I totally enjoyed this movie! I especially liked that EGR played his character cool, calm and collected. You don't see him yelling at his men and gesticulating all over the place! He portrayed his character as an adept psychologist, an independent thinker, who exhibits grace under fire. He uses compassion and sensitivity in a reassuring way. He sees all of the pieces to a puzzle and knows exactly where to place them in order to make a full picture.

The locations, cars and clothes just blew me away. I grew up in Los Angeles during the early 50's, and I remember riding in a 1949 Ford and 1953 Buick that my father owned.

The way the men looked in their full dress suits and sky highs (slang term for hats); and the women in their quiet elegance (never without gloves); is one of the reasons I love movies from the 40's and 50's.

Even to this day, if I pass through an old part of Los Angeles that is somewhat still intact (which is rare) from that time; it brings back old sweet memories, and I want to stay in that time warp and never come out. If you like EGR, cars, great locations, clothes, coolness and justice....Then you need to see this movie. All I need is for this movie to be released on DVD.

A cop-killer main plot is woven into a typical day in a police captain's LA precinct.

I really like seeing Barry Kelley's shyster lawyer get the run-around, getting all huffy and dyspeptic while the cops squeeze his client (Hall). Kelley was so good at smug, high- powered lawyer types that it's fun seeing him flustered for a change. The movie's almost a rogue's gallery of shady characters from the 50's, including that great little gnome Percy Helton whose deluded character apparently has "tv images" following him around! I'm just sorry we don't see more of the coquettish Goddard and her "escort" service (now what was that phone number again?).

Nothing exceptional here, just a really well-paced look at a police precinct in action. So look quickly because the characters-- excepting Robinson's police captain-- move in and out briskly, as do the many LA-area locations, circa 1953. At the same time, many of the cameo characters are well- etched. Note, for example, how the mortuary's secretary tries to pull a "bait and switch" on a customer, using an advertised $650 service as bait and then switching to a much more expensive one. That's the sort of incidental touch that really adds color, especially to a B- movie like this.

Speaking of touches, note the questionable tactics the cops use in chasing down the killers. Getting wimpy undertaker Hall to lie about his eye-witness identification is perhaps the most legally questionable, but not the only one. There's a clear effort at portraying police methods more realistically than usual, especially for the politically chilled 1950's. Anyway, in my little book, this is Hollywood thick ear at its slickest and most watchable.

Excellent cast. Paulette Goddard, basic minor role but still has the oomph. E.G. Robinson never ceases to amaze me, he is always the main force in all the movies he is in, I never tire of seeing him on film. The film did a very good job of developing the day to day business of a major city police station without making the police to appear as super human beings.

While this isn't a great Edward G. Robinson film, it is a very good one and a rather realistic view of police work--complete with a 1950s-style ignorance of the Bill of Rights! Like the movie DRAGNET, police harassment and ignoring of some basic rights are okay provided it results in a conviction! But, unlike DRAGNET, this film isn't nearly as dark in tone nor are there any of the wonderful Jack Webb comments, such as "the first shot tore him in half,...the second one made him a crowd". Instead, Robinson plays a police captain that is quieter and less "Noir" but nonetheless still pretty sneaky in order to catch a cop killer and foil a bank robbery. Because the film tends to be more realistic than many cop dramas and avoids the trademark camera-work and snappy dialog of Noir, it is more a police film than an example of Film Noir. Still, it's awfully good and watchable--with good writing and pacing. Not great, but you could do a lot worse!