La ronde du crime

This was a breezy, fast-paced little piece of noir that crosses the time barrier pretty efficiently. Each of the three main villains, driving through the sun-lit streets of San Francisco, delivering violence and death, leave up with strongly etched character studies. The locations are wonderful, particularly the ice rink. It's a privilege to sit back, follow, a simple, well-woven plot and travel back in time to a place you never been, yet know pretty intimately anyways. Films that flow with such ease are becoming rare items

This would be a great double bill with Bullitt or Dirty Harry. Heck, it would be a great double bill with anything.

Heroin from Asia is flooding into San Francisco, carried in souvenirs and curios packed by unwitting mules. When the mules arrive home to kick back after their peregrinations around the Pacific Rim, they are paid an unexpected and usually unpleasant visit by a team of psycho-killers named Dancer and Julian (Eli Wallach and Robert Keith, respectively), who collect the precious narcotic. Wallach is forever on the edge of detonation, so it takes the patient ministrations of Keith to soothe him down and keep him on task; their relationship suggests that of an old queen dealing with rough trade. (Their young driver, Richard Jaeckel -- best remembered as the young Turk in Come Back, Little Sheba -- adds to the homoerotic tone, as does a violent scene in a steambath). Don Siegel goads the action along and knows what he's doing every step of the way. The Lineup marks a no-man's-land between classic film noir, which had pretty much ground to a halt, and the flatter, faster and more sensational thrillers that the early 1960s would bring; in its more modest way, it foreshadows later movies like The Detective, Bullitt and The French Connection.

The late director, Don Siegel, never made a bad film: and many of them were classics of their kind. He directed "Flaming Star", one of Presley's better efforts. He directed Clint Eastwood in "Coogan's Bluff", "Two Mules For Sister Sara", and "The Beguiled". He made one of the best of John Wayne's later films: "The Shootist". He directed the original "Invasion of The Body Snatchers". He also directed now rarely seen films like "Baby Face Nelson", with Mickey Rooney.

"The Lineup" stands out even among this fine body of work. While "The Lineup" is a 'caper' film, it's anything but what passes these days for films of that genre. I was lucky that a film society I belonged to, managed to get hold of a 35mm print of this film, along with prints of "The Hanged Man", Riot In Cell Block 11", "The Verdict", "Baby Face Nelson", and others. Naturally, this and other early Don Siegel films are not on tape. Something I hope will be rectified one day, hopefully now, put out on DVD. Eli Wallach, as 'Dancer', is outstanding, as is Robert Keith as 'Julian'. If it turns up on TV, or cable, cancel everything and watch it. It has one of the best endings ever!

Tightly scripted, excitingly staged, and brilliantly acted by Eli Wallach, this is a real sleeper. It could have been just another slice of thick-ear on the order of the Dragnet movie (1954). But thanks to writer Stirling Silliphant, director Don Siegel, and actor Wallach, The Lineup stands as one of the best crime films of the decade.

Someone in production made a key decision to shoot the film entirely on location in San Francisco, and rarely have locations been used more imaginatively then here, from dockside to Nob Hill to the streets and freeways, plus lively entertainment spots. The producers of 1968's Bullit must have viewed this little back-and-whiter several times over, especially the car chase.

Colorless detectives Warner Anderson and Emile Meyer (standing in for Tom Tully of the TV series of the same name) are chasing down psychopathic hit-man Wallach and mentor Robert Keith, who in turn are chasing down bags of smuggled narcotics. Dancer (Wallach) is simply chilling. You never know when that dead-pan stare will turn homicidal, even with little kids. Good thing his sidekick, the literary-inclined Julian (Keith), is there as a restraining force, otherwise the city might be seriously de-populated.

Cult director Siegel keeps things moving without let-up, and even the forces of law and order are kept from stalling the action. My favorite scene is where Dancer goes slowly bonkers at the uncooperative Japanese doll. Watch his restrained courtship manners with the lonely mother (Mary La Roche) come unraveled as he reverts to psychopathic form, while mother and daughter huddle in mounting panic at the man they so trustingly brought home. It's a riveting scene in a film filled with them.

The Line Up is another of those unheralded, minor gems that has stood the test of time, unlike so many of the big-budget cadavers of that year or any year.

Lots of films have been shot in San Francisco, but few present as many views of the City By the Bay as this one. Here's what we see: Pier 41 and the Embarcadero, Coit Tower, The Ferry Building, The Cliff House, Sutro's Baths (after the closure of the swimming baths in 1954, but during the heyday of the skating rink that took one of the bath's place until 1966--this is probably the only motion picture featuring this rare sight), lots of neighbourhoods, and--to top it all off--a car chase on the then under construction Embarcadero Freeway (since torn down due to earthquake hazard)! Add in a truly exciting and relatively believable story of drug smuggling--certainly cutting edge stuff in 1958--and you have a great little film. Of particular note is Robert Keith (the sheriff in 1954's The Wild One) as one of the twisted criminals. Whenever co-villain Eli Wallach kills someone, Keith writes down the victim's 'final words' in his little black book. And in the some things never change department, Oakland's Lake Merritt is cited as the location of a taxi theft by one of the film's numerous junkies.