Investigation criminelle

Arnold Laven's VICE SQUAD is a 1953 "police procedural" B that follows LA police chief Edward G. Robinson around for a day and he sees it all: a patrolman shot, a marriage bunco, pickpockets, an "escort service", a bank heist, police snitches, and other flotsam and jetsam with some harmless insanity and adultery thrown in for good measure. It's all in a day's work for the chief, a no-nonsense man with a kind side (reminiscent of Robinson's "Asa Keyes" only less verbose) who gives everything from misdemeanors to murder raps the attention they merit and even manages to squeeze in an appearance on a TV talk show (cut short, of course, when he finds out the cop died). He's got time for everyone and always gets his man but the methods the police use would cause rioting in the streets today. Oh well, the ends justify the means and it's all for a good cause at the end of this day.

Actors like Eddie G., Barbara Stanwyck, and a host of others always did their professional best in these kinds of '50s B's which makes them a pleasure to watch even if the movies themselves aren't so hot. This one's not bad with the LA locations and unsung character actors (milquetoast Porter Hall, sinister Lee Van Cleef, sweaty Adam Williams, and an uncredited Percy Helton) all helping to raise it a notch above the routine. The billed-above-the-title co-star Paulette Goddard didn't hurt, either, and makes the most of her brief scenes. She's a sassy "escort operator" in sunglasses and mink that was probably based on "Hollywood Madam" Brenda Allen, in the news at the time for testifying before a Senate subcommittee hearing on police corruption in LA. Those hearings became the basis for William McGiver's THE BIG HEAT, which was made the same year and, in fact, VICE SQUAD seems like a "good cop/bad cop" counterpoint to Fritz Lang's brutal noir.

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.

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!

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.

EDWARD G. ROBINSON viewed this period in the early '50s as his B-film era, but VICE SQUAD is an efficient, if low-budget product that gives him a chance to show his stuff in a story about the day to day activities of a police precinct in '50s L.A. PAULETTE GODDARD gets top female billing in what is essentially a cameo role as her career was obviously in decline at this point. She's sassy and brittle as the head of an escort club who agrees to cooperate with Robinson's police investigation.

Robinson is seen adroitly handling a number of sticky situations, including the death of a policeman and the reluctance of a witness to talk; the discovery that a bank heist is about to take place; and the effect of the cop killing on a gang of car thieves. It's interesting to catch an early glimpse of LEE VAN CLEEF as one of the car thieves.

There's a film noir look to Joseph Biroc's first rate B&W photography with excellent use of light and shadows and it's directed in brisk style by Arnold Laven. All of the intertwined stories are smoothly coordinated but the tension doesn't start building until about forty-five minutes into the bank heist sequence.

Actually the police tactics shown are pretty underhanded, so it's not exactly a flattering portrait of police procedures--but they do seem credible.

Packs just as much suspense as another crime melodrama with a New York locale--THE NAKED CITY. The shots of L.A. in the early '50s establish atmosphere from the start. Well worth viewing.