ok - here's the list.. we'll be fleshing it out with more descriptions of the movies pretty soon.. as well as an introductional essay about the cop-film genre... so read on and watch all:
Tough Cops: NY vs. LA-
it's tough being a cop... a MANIAC COP!
To Live and Die in LA(Friedkin.’85)-They’re
not really cops – Secret Service, really - but it has definite ‘cop-movie’ status.. see Travis’ review for all the details…
The Stone Killer(Winner.’73)-Bronson covers both NY and LA.. he cracks some heads and uncovers a mob-assassination-plot involving Vietnam vets.. They’re a little slow at figuring it all out – but it’s plenty violent along the way…
The Seven-Ups(D’Antoni.’73)-
Roy Scheider’s crack team of NYC cops is subtly manipulated by childhood friend and mob-connected-mortuary-owner-informant Tony LoBianco.. Kidnappings, beatings and car-chases ensue.. as well as Joe Spinell in some kind of leisure suit get-up...
Night of the Juggler(Robert Butler.'80)-Possibly one of the most impressive and brutal NYC car-chases (with Mandy Potemkin at the wheel!) as Brolin’s ex-cop tracks down the psycho who mistakenly kidnaps his daughter.. featuring a wide range of NYC locations - most notably the burned-up bombed-out ruins of The Bronx...
Brolin's boiling...
Hustle(Aldrich.’75)-Aldrich
piles on the sleaze and sweat as LA cop Burt Reynolds seems more concerned about “getting out” with his call-girl-girlfriend, Denuve, than catching the killer of Ben Johnson’s daughter.. there are some memorable close-ups in this one...
Cruising(Friedkin.’80)-Not nearly as homophobic as it has the reputation for – Pacino’s rookie NYC cop dons leather, tight jeans and tight-white-t to ferret out a serial killer in the (pretty authentic) world of gay leather-bars, public-restroom sex and pick-ups.. and he can really dance!
The Prowler(Losey.’51)-
Private Hell, 36(Siegel.’54)-
Blue Steel(Bigelow.’90)-A bit absurd – a bodega in NYC with a public restroom and a white guy behind the counter? – but Jamie Lee Curtis is great as the girl who says she became a cop because “I want to shoot people”…
Dead-Bang(Frankenheimer’89)
-Johnson pukes on a perp! Film losses stem as it leaves the dinge of LA behind for the mid-West.. but – he pukes on a perp!
God Told Me To(Cohen.’77)-Another of Cohen’s great NYC pics.. as religious cop Tony LoBianco deals with ‘ordinary’ New Yorkers overcome with the sudden urge to kill because “God told me to…” .. and then He makes an appearance! Totally bizarre and powerful..
sometimes cops are funny(Andy Kaufman in God Told Me To)
Madigan(Siegal.’68)-Siegal drains the familiarity from the NYC landscape (eg.: the Coney Island scenes are shot in the desolation of wintertime) as he sets the impersonal bureaucrat of Henry Fonda against Widmark's all-too-emotional and volatile NYC detective.. it's like 'Invasion of the Bodysnatchers' as a police drama...
Cops & Robbers(Avakian.’73)-Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna are two NYC men-in-blue who from Queens who just want a little more from life.. they're not the brightest of minds - but they just may pull off one hell of a caper in this Donald Westlake adaptation.. and you won't be able to get that theme song out of your head..
Bad Lieutenant(Ferrara.’92)- our filmfancy friend Lisa said that, after seeing this in the theater, she felt as though she'd been dragged by her hair through the garbage - unclean.. the movie never lets up - it's unrelenting and unflinching - it just keeps spiralling downward.. and it shows you what you get when you bet against the Mets...
boys don't cry...
Union Square(Mate.’50)-
Year of the Dragon(Cimino.’85)-Rourke's NYC cop wages a one-man war against Chinatown corruption and drug/gang slayings.. excessive on all fronts: action, racial slurring, violence, and blood-letting.. it's gloriously over-the-top...
Cobra(Cosmatos.’86)-
Stallone's match-chewing hot-rod driving one-man LA police force goes up against some knife wielding "new order" - they're the disease; he's the cure. Like penicillin.
Cobra is full of venom...
Colors(Hopper.’88)-
Shakedown(Glickenhaus.’88)-
Times Square at the end of its glory days - just before it went belly-up.. crack is king of the city and the cops are as dirty as the streets - as Peter Weller's public defender teams up with rouge-cop Sam Elliott (who's living in the - Lyric? - theater) against corrupt cops and the criminals they do business with.. the action in this is unparalleled in any NYC movie - a fight on the Cyclone!
Across 110th Street(Shear.’72)-
Cop(Harris.’87)-Wood's has the tendency to over-do it - but here he's golden as he hunts LA for a killer that may be closer than he thinks.. and gets involved with a "feminist".. it's nuances are at turns hilarious and frightening and, coming from a James Ellroy novel, it has the terrain down pat..
Falling Down(Schumacher.’93)-another of Duvall's cop-about-to-retire flics - has him tracking office-dweeb-come-unglued Michael Douglas - who's slowly tearing a trail of increasing violence and destruction across the LA landscape.. a crazy, delirious white-collar payback fantasy...
Maniac Cop(Lustig.’88)-panic hits New Yorkers when they find out the maniac killer stalking the streets is a maniac man-in-blue.. Lustig and writer Larry Cohen know the beat of NYC.. and big-guy Robert Z'dar(?!) makes for one formidable psychopath.. and Cohen regular Laurene Landon is something special...
Maniac Cop 2(Lustig.'90)-just when you thought it was safe to hit the streets again - Z'dar is back! (and he's dead and he's pissed and he's killing cops and he's best friends with a serial killer..) insane!
Vice Squad(Sherman.’82)-Wings Hauser IS Ramrod! (all you really need to know).. 'psychopath' is putting it mildly.. as Season Hubley's prostitute navigates the sex gutters of Hollyweird to help the cops put an end to Ramrod's mean streak...
it'll shatter your senses...
Hickey & Boggs(Culp.’72)-
Detective Story(Wyler.’51)-
Fort Apache, The Bronx(Petrie.’81)-a bit episodic: deliver a baby here, help a suicidal queen there, break up a riot here, get involved with a junkie there.. all in a days work for the uniformed men in this grunt-cop-drama.. with the Bronx again looking like it just got leveled by a big one...
Corrupt(Faenza.’83)-Kietel as another bad lieutenant - he's a NYC detective with a secret: that CPW apartment didn't come from salary.. things get complicated when could-be-a-killer John Lydon (used to be Johnny Rotten) starts 'hanging around'.. things get down-right sick, actually..
Beverly Hills Cop(Brest.’84)-
The French Connection(Friedkin.’71)ok - it's deservedly a classic.. but if you haven't seen it (or haven't seen it in a while) - you'd better... the car chase, yes - it's a high-point.. but it's in the subtle details that this really shines: take-out coffees on the cold corner of a winter stake-out, nights spent in the front seat of the car, crappy fast-food.. it's a tough life - it's a cops life...
Serpico(Lumet.’73)-
Prince of the City(Lumet.’81)-
Law and Disorder(Passer.’74)-a bit of a stretch for the cop series - as Borgnine and Carroll O'Conner try to organize themselves and other average-Joe's into an auxiliary police unit to protect their Lower East Side Projects.. O'Conner's subtle performance is miles away from Archie Bunker in this funny and moving slice of NYC life...
The Chiorboys(Aldrich.’77)-a great cast of men-in-blue: Woods, Perry King, Don Stroud, Charles Durning, the evil (and underknown) Tim McIntire.. plus - Burt Young (hilarious), Robert Webber, Vic Tayback.. LA cops like to party - and they're not particularly good at their jobs it seems.. unfortunately, this falls apart a bit towards the end when things start getting heavy.. another plus - pregnant Rainbeaux Smith as a prostitute!
Coogan’s Bluff(Siegel.’68)-Arizona cop Eastwood is a fish-out-of-water when he comes to the big city (NYC) to extradite hipster criminal on the loose Don Stroud.. but he'll get the job done his way because he's Clint Eastwood.. and he's not from Texas!
Hollywood Vice Squad(Spheeris.'86)-Carrie Fisher makes for a not too tough vice detective – while Frank Gorshin is one sleazy pimp… populated with extras scraped out of the gutters of Hollywood Boulevard…
can it truly be a cop movie without a car chase?
this is just the first in a continuing, ever changing series of filmfancy virtual-programming.. coming up: 'Zombie Corral' - a round-up of our fave zombie flicks; 'War Wounds-Vietnam Vets Unhinged' (working title - self explanatory)... and more...
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