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Cop Hater (1958)

This is no brilliant affair, but it's more enjoyable than you might expect. It centers around a precinct police station and a group of guys who are suddenly on a manhunt for a cop killer. While that part of the plot has its small moments, it's the interaction between these guys, including some honest fun banter (not tough guy stuff), that really works. And two or three of the main cops are good actors, holding their own.

There are women on the side, one a searing beauty of some sort (a bit exaggerated and stiff, but you get the idea when she's on), the other a sharp and stylish deaf and mute woman played by Ellen Parker. These types are obviously meant to be opposites, one sympathetic and modest, the other full of herself and untrustworthy.

There is a Latino gang that figures into play eventually, and that gets a little crazy in its own way. And the leader is Glenn Cannon, who went on to have a long career on t.v. This is his first movie and he's pretty terrific for his four minutes of fame.

Otherwise this is a conventionally filmed crime film. Don't expect a gritty or moody film noir, because it's not that. But do expect a well paced plot with some nice interpersonal stuff. Probably has more honesty to it than most crime movies of the time, which are pumped up with types and drama.

I have always been a great fan of books, novels written by Ed McBain, the most profilic and famous writter in terms of investigations and police procedural. He wrote fifty books about Steve Carella and his colleagues, cops like him in the 87th Precinct. Every crime books buff in the world knows Ed McBain, aka Evan Hunter, writer of BLACKBOARD JUNGLE. That said, I am not a great fan of William Berke's films, I watch them only because I crave for B movies, crime thrillers, adventures, horror...and Berke was also a prolific director. And this movie, adapted from Ed Mc Bain, as will be THE MUGGER, just after this one, also directed by Berke, this movie and THE MUGGER will be among the best that William Berke will offer us. Unfortunately by the end of his career. He died suddenly from a heart attack just after the editing of his last movie. The same tragic events occured in 1958 too, for two other directors, just after their last films were finished, before their releases: Fred S Sears and Kurt Neuman, what a coincidence. This movie doesn't have the Berke's trademark, on the contrary, it is very well made: characters, atmosphere, story, editing, everything very close to McBain's novel. Even to the heat - hot - atmosphere, with this gorgeous killed cop's widow who dreams only to undress because of the heat.... A must see, I assure you.

Very interesting, well done look at the late 1950's in NY, on the streets, in the precinct house. What is so amazing is that you really can tell which actors will end up stars or at least significant players. Charisma is very real and evident here. Robert Loggia is a revelation. I've never seen him so young and yet he is very macho and attractive. The camera loves him and I'll bet that a lot of viewers do as well. A boyish Jerry Orbach is certainly an eye full as well. Recommended as a very interesting exploration of the past that is now just receding beyond easy recollection. Cannot say that the female performers are as memorable but then, one can't have everything but this dishes up quite a lot and the author certainly deserves his subsequent career.

Even longtime fans of Ed McBain's evergreen series of police procedurals set in the 87th Precinct may be startled to learn that they started out back in the1950s (and they're still coming). Cop Hater was the first of them to reach the big screen, in a bare-bones production directed by genre-movie veteran William A. Berke.

A heat wave has settled over The City (it's New York, but McBain never identifies it as such), bringing tempers to the flashpoint. An alarm clock wakes a cop for his midnight shift; when he descends into the soupy night, a shot fells him. The entire precinct mobilizes immediately - one of their own has been killed.

We encounter the familiar names of the Precinct's detectives (or some of them), most notably Steve Carella (here, Carelli), played by a young Robert Loggia; he's the bright cop engaged - not yet married - to the beautiful deaf-mute Teddy (Ellen Parker). His partner Maguire (Gerald O'Loughlin) has already tied the knot, but when he tries to keep cool in his undershorts to the whirr of a feeble fan, his wife (Shirley Ballard) brushes him off (`You're wet - oozing wet,' she sniffs).

When a second cop is gunned down in cold blood, attention turns to members of one of the gangs of young punks that were a fixture of post-war New York, but it's a dead end. Next, it's Maguire's turn to meet his very own dead end. Loggia, made indiscreet by too many `splashes' of Scotch to slake his thirst, tells his theories to a callow newspaper reporter and inadvertently puts Teddy in jeopardy....

Cop Hater gets the feel of the grimy streets and cramped apartments of a sweltering urban jungle just right (it also preserves the film debut of Jerry Orbach and very early appearances by Vincent Gardenia and Loggia). The puzzle of the murders may seem a little mechanical (it's a riff on Agatha Christie's The Alphabet Murders), and personalities don't emerge as vividly as we might like. But then this was early in the series, and McBain had only begun to sketch out the quirks of his recurring characters. McBain, of course, is the pseudonym of Evan Hunter (born Salvatore Lombino), who wrote the screenplays for Blackboard Jungle and The Birds. In Cop Hater, his anonymous City takes pride of place.

The early 50's were the era of Jack Webb, police procedure, and the docu-drama, where law enforcement was portrayed in the best possible professional light. After all, there was an emerging Cold War to fight. On the other hand, this late 50's movie, adapted from an Ed McBain novel, is edging away from that ideal toward a more realistic portrayal of policing in a city precinct. Dragnet, it ain't.

Too bad that the result comes across as something of a trashy, exploitation flick because there's a good story with several interesting passages plus a neat twist ending buried beneath the tacky titillation. Someone's knocking off cops for no apparent reason, a psycho the detectives figure. So the heat at the precinct is really on with no real suspects. Nonetheless, much of what follows is pretty muddled and hard to follow. It's not an A-grade adaptation or narrative, to say the least.

The way the cops are portrayed is interesting for the time. They knock people around, drink a lot (maybe on duty), and seem sex-starved much of the rest of the time. In short, the detectives appear not that different from most young American males. Given today's relaxed standards, colorful episodes like rousting a street gang or ogling a nude woman in a towel may seem tame, but in 1958, such scenes were quite daring.

The trouble is that too much of the drama and suspense is sacrificed to a lot of cheesecake scenes, which may have sold tickets but do little to advance the story. Too bad, because the acting from a New York cast comes across as unforced and natural, plus the main characters don't look like typical Hollywood types. Even the girls, though sexy, aren't tinsel town perfect.

With a better structured, less exploitative script, the film could have risen above the drive-in level. As the results stand, however, there's not much beyond an historical interest in the evolution of the cop film. Besides, guys can get more titillation by just switching over to the Playboy channel.