Rent The Lineup (1958)

Terrific - The Lineup review by sb

FILM & REVIEW In the Naked City Jules Dassin took his cameras out of the studio and shot the whole thing on the streets of New York - Don Siegel used the same trick using San Francisco as his canvas. Heroin is being smuggled in using unwitting tourists as carriers but the cops become aware when one robbery/pickup goes wrong and a local cop gets killed. To clean up two very strange bagmen are sent to sort out the mess. They are Julian (Keith) and Dancer (Wallach) who have this very odd relationship- Julian is the senior man whose job seems to be to keep Dancer in check as it’s soon apparent the latter is a stone cold psycho. They go round the city collecting the drugs from the various Oriental gifts but soon things to unravel and the body count rises. It’s a very cold and cynical film for it’s time and Wallach is just superb is the hitman always bordering on boiling point as the Police net closes in……the use of the cities locations are terrifically used and the final showdown is a master class in tension. Cracking stuff from one of the finest directors of his generation. - 4/5

Frisco Crime. - The Lineup review by Steve

Culty big screen version of a long running radio and tv police procedural, set on the streets of San Francisco. There are some changes in the cast and a quality action director in Don Siegel, who apparently also shot the pilot episode. The approach is obviously modelled on the Dragnet franchise.

This was too violent for the '50s American home and Eli Wallach and Robert Keith as the psychopathic killers are excessively brutal. Which must have been the attraction of adapting the formula for the cinema. There are moments which anticipate Siegel's more visually complex crime pictures of the 60s-70s, particularly the exciting climactic car chase.

Marshall Reed and Emile Meyer as the buddy cops don't have much charisma. The main problem is in extending the usual 30m episode to feature length, the narrative feels repetitive and overextended. The jargon is dated and the dialogue laden with exposition and editorialising about the foulness of crime. Which is part of the fun!

Today, all the social realism about the war on drugs is a cliché. There are no surprises. It's not really film noir. There isn't any expressionism though Siegel brings a little visual style. The extensive 'Frisco location shoot adds interest. It's a period piece which employs all the motifs of a '50s tv cop series, but with far better production values.