The Laughing Policeman
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Movie Reviews of The Laughing Policeman
Movie Review: Death by the Busload
Summary: 3 Stars
Gritty naturalism and Altman-esque crosstalk amid great Bay City location work inform this 70s procedural that entertains but misses the mark of being a classic. The picture's overlong with a few too many red herrings. Things pick up for the climax. (Indeed, the ingenious plot could be due for a remake.)
Matthau is suitably low-key in the picture's admirably unsparing picture of the cop's home life. Lou and Bruce are along to jack up the energy.
Movie Review: A solid San Francisco police procedural in the "Bullitt"-mode
Summary: 5 Stars
In the 1960s the writing team of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo wrote police procedural mysteries based on the cops of the Stockholm PD--a sort of Swedish 87th Precinct series without a vestige of wit or humor, hence the ironic title. Oh, very gloomily Scandinavian! The books were immensely successful in Europe and even managed the almost unprecedented feat of jumping the Atlantic to become best sellers in America. "The Laughing Policeman" was probably the best-known book of the lot. It is still very much in print and well worth reading today.
Inevitably the series was picked up on option by an American film studio. In 1973, "The Laughing Policeman" was filmed ... with a few changes.
Ingmar Bergman may have been widely admired but he was not box office. No US studio was going to risk big bucks on unknown Swedish actors, nossiree. Walter Matthau was hired to play the lead detective and a young Bruce Dern to play his sidekick. (It should be remembered that in those days Matthau was still an all-around actor, and a good one; his talent had not yet disappeared beneath his comic persona.) If no Swedish actors, than certainly not Stockholm, a town that was presumably gloomy and dull. (Who knew? Who cared?) San Francisco was neither. That was the place!
The movie starts out with a wordless sequence which begins at what was then called the Eastbay Terminal located at about First and Mission Streets. A miscellaneous lot of people board a small diesel bus decked out in the Municipal Railway's old green and cream color scheme that clearly bears the route designation "14 MISSION." The bus wends its way through the streets of San Francisco until one passenger uses an automatic assault rifle, called a "grease gun" in the script, to murder everybody else on the bus. The bus, no longer controlled by the now-dead driver, careens slowly through Chinatown, coming at last to a stop in a gentle crash. The mass murderer, face unshown, steps off and, so far as the puzzled detectives who soon arrive on the scene are concerned, vanishes into thin air.
(Now, to any San Franciscan, a major mystery immediately appears: what in tarnation was a 14 MISSION bus doing so far off course--in Chinatown, of all unlikely places?)
"The Laughing Policeman" was made in the era of the hugely successful Steve McQueen vehicle, "Bullitt," a police procedural set in San Francisco and almost dialogue-free. "The Laughing Policeman" is chattier, but not by much. I wouldn't be surprised to find that all the dialogue in the shooting script could be contained in under ten typewritten pages.
Like "Bullitt" and another famous San Francisco mystery movie, "Vertigo," "The Laughing Policeman" is both an homage to the City and a travelogue. In "Bullitt," San Francisco is an action-oriented theme park suitable for chases up and down the hilly streets. In "Vertigo," San Francisco is a place of picturesque monuments that mask old sins. But in "The Laughing Policeman" the cameras dote on the sleazy underbelly of the City, familiar places in the daily slog of the natives but effectively invisible to the tourists.
I lived in San Francisco for 31 years. I left it in 1973. This movie exactly captures the City as I remember it. (I visited San Francisco a couple of months ago. With the single exception of the Embarcadero Freeway, torn down after the big 1989 earthquake, hardly a brick or a hair has changed in any of the locations that appear on the screen.)
All in all, this is a pretty good, terse, well-acted film that offers a respectable story and is at once a travelogue and time capsule.
Give it a try. Five stars.
Movie Review: Eight People Know Who The Killer Is - And They're All Dead
Summary: 4 Stars
Sgt. Jake Martin is speaking to his new partner, Insp. Leo Larsen; trying to convince him how important this investigation is. Inspector Leo Larsen is leery:
"Sgt. Jake Martin SFPD: Evans was working the Teresa thing on his own time. He's killed on the same bus with Gus Niles who's looking for a grease gun that happens to be the weapon used.
Insp. Leo Larsen SFPD: And then his girlfriend winds up dead on the floor with the needle... Jake, you realize what you just did? You do it to me all the time, now you heard what the man said upstairs.
Sgt. Jake Martin SFPD: I heard him, I was up there, he's a nice man, he shoots in the low 80s, but he plays too close to the vest.
Insp. Leo Larsen SFPD: Then what are you laying all that crap on ME FOR? WHY DON'T YOU STOP IT FOR ONCE? That's YOUR personal hang-up, it does NOT happen to be mine!
Sgt. Jake Martin SFPD: Can't you see it?
Insp. Leo Larsen SFPD: I see one thing, I see why you're such a good cop, and one reason only, because you're so screwed up otherwise. You're beyond human belief, you understand that? You've got nothing else, no personal life, nothing!
Sgt. Jake Martin SFPD: All I'm asking you to do is help me tail a guy for a few days, its routine!
Insp. Leo Larsen SFPD: IT IS NOT ROUTINE JAKE, GODDAMMIT, IF THE BOSS SAYS FORGET IT!"
Nine people in San Francisco get on a bus, one leaves alive. The
living one takes with him a "greaser", some sort of sub-machine gun that he used to kill the other eight. Why? What is this all about? That is what Sgt. Martin wants to know. One of the eight is his dead partner, who was supposed to be on vacation. Jake Martin( Walter Matthau) is obsessed with this case, and will not rest until he finds the answer. Enters (Bruce Dern)Insp. Leo Larsen, his new partner. This is Leo's break, up into the big time, but his partner doesn't talk much, and it drives him crazy.
Sgt. Jack Martin is "melancholy, bordering on depression, overwhelming him because he suspects he may have lost his partner as the result of the two-year-old case he failed to resolve." Thus "The Laughing Policeman" is a play on words. This case takes us into the underground of San Francisco in the 1970's. Fuzzy, high hair, hippies, bright suits and a tamer life than we know now. The investigation is "right on", and the clues and lack of clues bring them to many stops along the way. All of the clues are looked at carefully, and all of the leads followed up. The criminal elements are all interviewed. The loves and the outlaws are interplayed with junkies and the motorcycle mamas. These detectives are real and play the part, they are depressed and worried and sometimes hate their job. Sgt.Martin has been in this business for a long time, and the unsolved case of a few years ago has now come full tilt. There is the requisite car chase in San Francisco up the hills and around the sharp corners. Walter Matthau has stepped into his second detective role, and at times it seems as if he is reaching for this character. Bruce Dern plays his character with charm and determination. The scenery is magnificent and the city comes alive. This is the beginning of the detective series that we have seen so many times on TV. "The Streets Of San Francisco" it is not, but almost as good.. Recommended. Prisrob
Movie Review: Interesting Police Procedural, Very Much Of Its Time
Summary: 4 Stars
Two men get on a bus in early morning San Francisco. It's still dark out. One seems to be following the other, and the first man appears to be aware of it but isn't concerned. There are five other passengers, among them an old man, a young woman going to work, a Chinese-American kid. The bus picks up another passenger. This man goes to the back of the bus, and while he's seated he quietly reaches into a bag and screws on a barrel to a machine gun. Then he stands and murders everyone on the bus. The bus crashes and he walks away. This is a taut, terrific opening to a police procedural that I wish I liked more than I do.
It turns out that the man on the bus who had been following the other is a policeman. Among the cops called to the scene is Jake Martin (Walter Matthau), who was the guy's partner. Martin is shocked at the discovery. He has no idea what his partner had been doing. With a massacre on his hands, the lieutenant in charge (Anthony Zerbe) tells Leo Larsen (Bruce Dern) to work with Jake. He makes it clear he wants all stops out to find the killer. What follows is a meticulous look at dogged police work, chasing down leads, searching for connections, trying to make sense of what appears to be a senseless act. Some of those killed had crime sheets or were drug users, and this sends Martin and Larsen into San Francisco's underbelly. Finally Martin realizes that there might be a connection to a two-year-old case that he had talked to his former partner about, a connection that may have triggered his partner's interest. If this turns out to be true, then Martin and Leo have a lead to a killer.
What is so good about this movie is, among other things, the set up. The machine gun shooting is a startling opening. It raises all kinds of questions. The look into police methods keeps your attention; you see how Martin and others put the pieces together. Matthau does a fine job as Martin, close to being burned out, laconic and not too interested at first in working with Larsen, who's a bit of a wise guy. The tension between the two of them works, I think, because Matthau and Dern are both good actors. There are three excellent set pieces that are very well handled: in the morgue during the autopsies of the victims, in the emergency room where staff tries to save the one survivor, and the lead-up to the bus shooting.
Where I wish it had been better concerns the casting of the smaller parts and the direction. Too many of the actors look like actors. Much of the movie is spent turning over stones and looking at San Francisco's lowlife...pimps, prostitutes, sleazy bar managers, porno theater ticket sellers, burlesque dancers, gay bar denizens in leather or makeup. Most of them look like they're acting sleaze. If you want a taste of real life, check out Mona Lisa, where the underage prostitutes have pimples on their faces and backsides. There's none of that reality here. There also is a tendency to create emotion-charged scenes that are marred by "acting"...the kind of slightly false intensity you can see on some television cops-and-robbers series.
This is one of three crime movies Matthau made in a three year period. The others were Charley Varrick, also in 1973, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three in 1974. This one is interesting and worth a watch. Unless you really like Matthau, I'm not sure if you'd want to buy it. Varrick, if it had a better DVD presentation, and Pelham are both, in my view, keepers. The DVD presentation for this one is not great but not too bad. There are no extras.
If you want a treat, get a copy of the book this movie was made from. Same title, The Laughing Policeman, by Maj Sjowell and Per Wahloo. The detective is Martin Beck, not Jake Martin, and the bus massacre takes place in Stockholm. It's an excellent police procedural mystery.
Movie Review: Matthau and Dern at their best
Summary: 4 Stars
There is absolutely nothing funny about "The Laughing Policeman", director Stuart Rosenberg's ultra-serious, ultra-violent police procedural/character study from 1974. Actually, that it's a hard-boiled police thriller is apparent five minutes in, when a lone gunman machine guns an entire city bus full of passengers to death and disappears into thin air. Enter foul-tempered homicide detective Lt. Jake Martin (Walter Matthau), whose anger intensifies when he realizes one of the victims is his off-duty partner. He's in even less of a good mood when he's paired with affable, sympathetic new partner Leo Larsen (Bruce Dern, in a rare "straight" role). The rest of the film follows their search for the killer, which leads them into some pretty unsavory places in and around San Francisco.
"The Laughing Policeman" isn't so much a police thriller as a procedural, and a very good one at that. There is very little action, and most of the tension comes from Martin and Larsen's prickly relationship. And gay viewers may be offended by where the crime ends up, as the San Francisco gay scene is shown in an extremely negative light. That said, there's something special to be found in any movie that relies on sheer acting from its lead and supporting cast, which includes Lou Gossett and Anthony Zerbe as fellow cops and Cathy Lee Crosby and Joanna Cassidy as two women who may have clues to whodunnit. And the last fifteen minutes are absolutely hair-raisingly suspenseful.
I'll say no more about this excellent thriller except to say that the DVD is presented in an excellent color transfer and in the proper 1:85:1 aspect ratio format, unlike the unfortunately botched release of Matthau's other stellar 1974 crime thriller "Charley Varrick", which is dumped onto DVD in a fullscreen transfer. Unfortunately, the only special feature is the original theatrical trailer, which is incredibly dated like most trailers of the era.
Thrill seekers may want to look elsewhere, but those in the mood for an intelligent, atmospheric thriller may find what they're looking for in "The Laughing Policeman".
**** (out of *****)
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