Investigation criminelle

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.

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.

This is not one of Edward G's best films. In fact it may be his worst but it is still watchable. It's pretty much a run of the mill 50's crime story which centers around the activities in one day of a detective's life. Good black and white photography with excellent location shots.....not much use of studio sets. This adds to the realism and if you like old cars, the street scenes are for you! Edward G. is, as usual, top notch and for once gets to be a good guy. An aging Paulette Goddard, whose star was really on the wane, is adequate as the madame of an "escort service"....a thinly disguised brothel....her wordplay with Edward G. is sharp and ever so sexy. The supporting cast is familiar to all......and Lee VanCleef pops up as a killer (what else?) in one of his early films before he became an icon in Italian westerns. This is an enjoyable, throw-away film that is worth catching on some late night weekend. Anything with Edward G. is always one to watch.

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!

This is one of those excellent programmers that studios used to churn out as fillers (second or third features) when a day at the movies was really a day at the movies. Not 90 minutes to two and a half hours, but five hours, followed by a late dinner with your girl friend, boy friend, spouse, or kids. Robinson knocked this film (and several other excellent ones) he did in the early 1950s because his days of movie stardom seemed over (due to blacklisting, as well as a messy divorce). It was a bitter time, and his memories were colored by that bitterness. Yet in this period he did films with Paulette Goddard, Ginger Rogers, Alan Ladd, John Forsythe, and Barbara Stanwyck (the last a western). He even did a second film with his old film co-star (and nemesis) George Raft. Not bad for a barren period. Considering the number of films he did appear in, and comparing his situation to that of ... John Garfield, Robinson did not do too badly.

This film was made shortly after "Detective Story" with Kirk Douglas, William Bendix, and George Macready. While that was a good film too, it was based on a successful stage play. This is based on a script from Hollywood originally. But it is one of those "day in the work life of a police officer". Robinson is shown trying to find the two goons (Edward Binns and Lee Van Cleef) who killed one of his men in a robbery. He is also handling problems with a fake-Italian fortune hunter, a scared little man (Percy Helton), and even a television news spot he has to give. He handles everything with considerable professionalism and aplomb.

"Detective Story" may have initiated this period of films like this, but in actuality "Detective Story" centered on the emotional problems of "good" cop Kirk Douglas, and how he resolves them by sacrificing himself to catch an armed criminal (Joseph Wiseman). A better film to compare it with is "Gideon's Day", an odd film made a few years later by John Ford. Unlike most of Ford's films it was shot in England, and starred Jack Hawkins. The "Gideon" novels were popular detective stories at the time, and "Gideon's Day" dealt with Chief Inspector Gideon tracking down the thieves who fatally injured a policeman who tried to stop them. Ford's film dealt with other incidents in the officer's day, including meeting a new constable who is something of a stumble-bum, who ends up being re-introduced to him as his daughter's new boy friend. Although minor John Ford, it has some good moments (such as Hawkins talking to the dying police officer in the hospital, which is shown from the point of view of the officer going in and out of consciousness). Except that it takes place in London, not L.A., it is a match for "Vice Squad".

But somehow "Vice Squad" works better. Except for the comedy about Gideon's daughter and her new boy-friend, most of "Gideon's Day" is definitely set in England, and yet Ford can't get his Irish-Americanism totally out of himself. At one point an angry Gideon has to restrain himself from taking a poke at an arrested perpetrator. That would not have been normal in England, where that type of reaction is usually not met with. It would have happened in the 1950s (or even the 2000s) in any American city, but that seems to be expected.

"Vice Squad" has some good performances holding it up. Binns and Van Cleef do their normally professional jobs as the killers. Percy Helton plays a timid rabbit of a man, who has seen Robinson before (the scene humanizes both men, for Robinson knows Helton's fears are based on psychological problems and has been trying to get him to see a doctor). Porter Hall plays possibly the funniest schlemiel type he ever had the luck to play, as a man who was out on a private toot but is paying for it again and again because he was at the scene of the crime, so he is possibly a witness. Ironically Hall never saw anything, but Robinson still manages to use him effectively against somebody who can unlock the mystery. Even Hall finally realizes that it's to his advantage not to deny anything, but to play along with Robinson's hunch. The two did well together in "Double Indemnity", and it pleasant to see they still well together here. Paulette Goddard's performance is smaller than one would have wanted, but she makes the most of the role of the head of the "escort" services. If the rule twisting here seems out of date, please remember this is from 1953. The Warren Court had not started changing the open door policy for police investigations yet.