Stakeout on Dope Street

Long before Irvin Kershner tackled big budget movies such as "The Empire Strikes Back", he began his theatrical directorial career with this little movie. At times it's a pretty interesting debut. It tackles the subject of drugs when it was next to taboo to deal with them in movies. Kershner probably got away with it because the movie does portray drugs in a very negative light, from showing the brutal criminals that deal with them to the addicts controlled by the drugs they take. The negative portrayal is a little heavy handed at times, but one must remember the movie was made during a different time. Anyway, as entertainment the movie is certainly not boring, though the plotting is somewhat off - the bad guys after the opening sequence don't really reappear until the last part of the movie, and the youths' plan to sell the heroin seems padded out by today's standards. It also doesn't help that the "youths" are portrayed by actors who obviously left their teenage years many years in the past. In short, this is a flawed movie, but may be of interest to those who have interest in low budget youth-oriented movies from this period.

A jazz score accompanies the soundtrack of this gritty story about three teens who get involved with drugs (heroin supply) and then try to make a deal with a druggie who can turn over some cash for whatever amount they come up with. Meanwhile, some drug dealers are also after the drugs and will stop at nothing to find out where the teens have stashed the goods.

The no name cast is headed by YALE WEXLER as the more sensitive one who decides the drug heist should be handed over to the cops--but by the time he makes this decision it's too late and the dealers have already trapped his friends and beat them up. He manages to elude them when they pursue him on a climactic chase that forms the climax of the story.

Interesting, gritty and worthwhile if you're a film noir buff, but nothing extraordinary. The only reason I watched it was because I had seen the screen test of YALE WEXLER for the role of "Ben-Hur" in 1959 and wondered if he ever pursued an acting career after losing that role. Evidently, he did. He gives a convincing performance here and so does the rest of the cast.

Three teenagers find a briefcase with a beat-up old can in it. They throw away the can and pawn the suitcase. When they read in the papers that the can was full of uncut heroin and belonged to a drug dealer who killed two narcotics agents in a shootout, they go back to look for the can, find it, and decide to go into the heroin selling business.

This is not one of those great crime films you hear about, but it should be. It not only has a great story of cops and crooks, with teenagers caught in the middle, but it is refreshingly honest. I don't know that films about heroin were really around until the indie boom of the 1970s, but this film is very direct and does not try to sugar coat the issues.

I suppose one could say it has some seems that are bit melodramatic, and the junkie's long story of going through withdrawal has almost a "Reefer Madness" quality to it. But as a whole, this is a solid film.

This is a surprisingly strong AIP feature, a first for Irvin Kershner as writer and director. Although stylistically it seems, at first sight, little more than an expanded DRAGNET episode in which you get to see the criminals' viewpoints, this largely no-name cast gives a bunch of decent performances with some well-written characters.

The feature is about a group of rather clueless teenagers -- who appear to use all their off-screen time body building -- who discover a cannister of heroin. Neither hard core criminals nor saints, they want all the things that society says they should want, and are not choosy about how they go about getting it.

The writing and direction are stronger than the acting, but the overall effect is quite striking. Definitely worth your time.

Two cops arrest a criminal with a suitcase full of drugs. Bullets start flying. The criminal throws out the suitcase and is killed. The criminals can't find the bag in the dark and run away. Later, three teens happen upon the bag but it all looks like ladies makeup to them. They throw out the drugs thinking it is worthless pimple powder. After pawning the bag, they read about the shootout in the newspaper. They go retrieve the powder from the garbage dump.

This starts with an interesting premise but this Roger Corman production has its limitations. The acting is limited. The production is limited. It's a B-crime movie. I do start losing interest after the kids find the drugs. The drugs are better off as a MacGuffin because the search for it would be a more compelling story. Cops and criminal searching the pawn shops could find the bag and go down the road of looking for the boys. Actually finding the drugs is the movie's downfall. The teens look silly trying to be thugs selling drugs. It's unreal and uncompelling. This is director Irvin Kershner's first theatrical release and his work is functional.