L'assassin est-il coupable?

David Janssen stars in what might be described as a "mid-'60s sun-baked L.A. neo-noir meets Dragnet-esque police procedural". This was probably Janssen's best big screen role of his career, although the film did still overall have the production values and feel of a made-for-TV movie. I thought director Budd Kulik did well with his blocking and the pace of the film.

Janssen, in his usual low-key but effective manner of acting, plays LAPD Sgt. Tom Valens who is accused of the wrongful shooting of a respected Beverly Hills doctor during a late night stakeout. Later, unable to locate the gun he claims the doctor had pulled on him, Valens is first relieved of duty and then must face a grand jury hearing after which the prosecutor played by Sam Wannamaker expresses his delight in "putting bad cops in their place". With all the evidence pointing to Valens' guilt and with few if anyone believing his story, he sets out for himself in search of evidence to prove his innocence. (sound familiar, fans of his most memorable television role?)

A number of well known and respected actors and actress of the time would make what could basically be called long cameos throughout much of the movie, as it does seem a bit episodic in some parts. Among those familiar faces would be Ed Begley as Valens' LAPD superior, Lilian Gish as a sweet but forgetful elderly lady, Stefanie Powers as a sympathetic nurse, George Sanders as an investment banker, Eleanor Parker as the decedent's less-than-grieving widow, Joan Collins as Valens' soon-to-be ex-wife, Steve Allen as a blowhard television commentator, Carroll O' Connor as the grand jury judge and George Grizzard as a playboy airline pilot.

The ending is a bit weak in regard to a somewhat illogical aspect to it, but overall it is worthwhile.

Warning Shot features a grimly determined David Janssen trying to find out why a respected doctor pulled a gun on him and he was forced to fire and kill him. Janssen is a cop and he's got District Attorney Sam Wanamaker just itching to put him away.

Janssen and partner Keenan Wynn were on stakeout looking for a serial rapist and they were both anxious enough on that assignment. Now suspended Janssen has to rely on his own instincts in pursuing his own\ investigation for vindication.

Besides those already mentioned Warning Shot has a galaxy of film names of many generations going all the way back to Lillian Gish down to Joan Collins playing Janssen's estranged wife. As the film progresses these folks move in and out with some memorable and some perfunctory cameos.

Janssen who carries the film handles the burden well. I have to say that Warning Shot does not carry all that much suspense in that the real villain of the piece is obvious from when we first meet the character. Still it belongs on a list of fine made for television films

What can I say. Just bought the DVD for the all-star cast. Out-dated story of a LA police detective who shoots a Beverly Hills doctor who he claims pulled a gun on him, but no one can find the gun. The rest of the movie shows the detective trying to prove he is not guilty, and that the well-respected doctor was really a bad-guy after all.

Lots of well-known stars in the movie, but the standout is the Elenor Parker who looks very sexy and plays the part of a sexed-up, drunken widow to the tilt. Aside from that, and a few laughs regarding butter milk, this 1966 Who-Done-It is bested viewed on a rainy Saturday afternoon, the one which I'm having right now.

Warning Shot is a good, old-fashioned movie. David Janssen is the star, and acts in his usual style, like a cross between Alan Ladd and Jack Webb. The film is a murder mystery about a cop who claims to have killed a man in self-defense, only he can't find the gun he said the man was aiming at him. Buzz Kulik was a gifted director, and he handles this one well. Some people don't like this movie because it resembles a television show, as it does suggest in its visual style and art direction an episode of Mannix. This is too bad. It doesn't bother me at all, and the film is a hundred times better than Mannix ever was. Janssen was always at his best when hunted or woebegone. There was a quality to him,--I wouldn't call it sensitivity exactly--vulnerability, "hit-ability"; whatever it is, it's on full display here, and he does get badly beaten up at one point. The supporting cast is outstanding, with Ed Begley, Eleanor Parker, Keenan Wynn, Stefanie Powers and George Grizzard all first-rate. There's less for Walter Pidgeon and Steve Allen to do, though it's always nice to see them in anything. George Sanders has a small part as well, though he doesn't get a chance to shine, he seldom did in his later years.

The movie was one of several attempts to revive the forties crime film, whether of the noir or detective variety, probably inspired by the burgeoning Bogart cult of the sixties. Frank Sinatra and Lee Marvin appeared in a few like this, and Warning Shot is Janssen's crack at it. This is my favorite of the group. It's lean and fast-paced, a bit episodic, but in a good way. There's a lot of exposition, and a few false leads, but it's never tedious. I like the downbeat, depression in the orange groves, west coast Chandleresque aspect of the film, with palm and stucco everywhere, and cars that seem the size of today's SUV's only they're just Fords and Plymouths. Warning Shot's a period piece, but an entertaining one.

You can take Buzz Kulik's Warning Shot one of two ways. It's either a crackling good cop show, filled with procedure and great pacing, and David Janssen at his most heroically pathetic (and empathetic) as an LAPD detective facing a manslaughter charge or the movie is an over-clichéd snapshot of forced topicality in the Mirandized late '60's. It's really your call.

I'd like to think of Warning Shot as both, the way The Detective and Madigan mixed the vulnerable with the vulgar. After about the fourth time Janssen's character, Tom Valens, gets abused or beaten or gassed by the well-to-do slimeballs he's sworn to defend, you might start to notice how he'd probably be better off copping a plea for shooting a philanthropist doctor. Instead he swears grimly that he's going to defend his own honor to the bitter end (and repeatedly almost gets his way).

Warning Shot is packed with cameos, people who were legends when I was a kid, and now, forty years after its release, most of the performers are unrecognizable, which makes the story more accessible and less of an exercise in "Hey, look--it's . . . "

What makes the movie work is that David Janssen, looking ten years older than 35, is so very real as a man of good character with no excess intelligence, just grim determination.

A key figure in the story refers to Valens as "Sgt. Gumshoe" or something like that. It fits. Janssen's Valens is ordinary and vulnerable to the hyperventilating police-haters all around him. He can't do much more than reel and lurch from one disaster to the next, while awaiting his guaranteed-to-be-convicted trial. At one point, he gets the stuffing kicked out of him and doesn't even lay a finger on his attackers.

His ex-wife (played by the reptillian Joan Collins) tries to screw him while busting the very organs she's depending on for their quickie. The District Attorney (the equally scaley Sam Wannamaker) announces to Valens that he likes to crush solid and stolid cops whenever possible. By the end, Janssen has no one to turn to for even the most rudimentary support, not even a union rep (a very young and lovely Stephanie Powers, the dead doctor's nurse, can do no more than cluck over his sincerity and give him a ride home).

Nobody can help this poor shlub except himself.

Which brings me back to why Warning Shot is a mixture of reality and topical paranoia. Often, in crisis, people have to revert back to their core values to save themselves. Either they don't have anyone to help them or they don't trust anyone and decide to go it alone. Janssen's Tom Valens does just that.

Yet, at one point, he's told that his career is through no matter what happens. You can see the pain of this reality on Janssen's face as he surveys the damage he's done at the end of Warning Shot. He tosses his piece on the hood of a police car (no gun love here--it's just an ugly tool he wants out of his hand) and looks almost ready to cry from frustration and exhaustion. Like Frank Sinatra's Joe Leland and Richard Widmark's Dan Madigan, Tom Valens needs to get as far away from police work as possible.