Stakeout on Dope Street

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.

"Stakeout on Dope Street" is a decent film when it comes to the plot idea, but nothing, I mean NOTHING, makes the film particularly compelling. It should have been a lot more interesting than it was.

The film begins with a very gritty shootout--one where two cops are shot as well as one of the criminals. However, in the process, a briefcase full of pure, uncut heroin is lost. And, shortly afterwords, three young men discover the drugs and decide to get rich selling it. Two of the guys have no problem with this--but the third gets cold feet because he's worried about creating addicts just like the guy they hired to sell the stuff. However, once the guys start selling, it's inevitable that the guys who lost it will come looking.... If you want to find out what's next, see the film.

While the plot idea sounds interesting, this low-budget film never excited me--and several times I found myself nodding off during the movie. It's not a terrible film--just not a very interesting one. See it if you'd like, but you could do better.

Three aimless young men find a briefcase containing a load of valuable heroin. So what are they going to do with it. Desperate, they end up trying to sell it through an ex-junkie. The trouble is the mob wants their heroin back and are on the trail of the kids. And so are the cops.

Given the potentially explosive material, the 90-minutes comes across as peculiarly lacking in drama. The motions are there, but not the felt impact. Much, I think, has to do with the quality of the performances. Of the three boys, Marlo manages some grit as Nick. However, Wexler and Haze (yes, that Haze) appear to flounder in stand-around bland fashion. Plus, poor Abby Dalton looks completely lost. Thus, the movie's core is compromised at the outset. Then too, the cops are a particularly colorless bunch, adding nothing to the impact. Kramer, at least, looks the part of a washed-up ex- junkie, getting the big dramatic turn of painful drug withdrawal, where he writhes in expressive fashion. It's a scary public warning.

Then again, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the movie's high point. Namely, where the boys thrash through a real city dump looking for the heroin as a dozer keeps piling the trash higher. Talk about needles in a haystack, or climbing a mountain that keeps getting higher. One thing for sure, I've seen nothing like it before or since. Anyway, the direction (Kershner) is pretty spotty. There are some nice touches like the crashing bowling ball and bouncing pinball punctuating the two beatings, plus the cascade of heroin down the tank's side. Clearly, however, Kershner is more adept at staging than either coaching actors or building suspense. Even the imaginatively staged showdown doesn't generate the suspense it should. One big positive is the staging throughout. Real locations are used, lending a good glimpse of LA, circa 1958. Too bad the movie as a whole never quite gels, despite the promising premise.

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.

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.