The Laughing Policeman (1973) Neo Noir Visual Masterpiece

"Wow, a Visual Neo Noir         treat!"

Directed by Stuart Rosenberg (Murder, Inc. (1960), Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Drowning Pool (1975). 

Written by Thomas Rickman and  Stuart Rosenberg for screenplay and based on Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall novel of the same name. The excellent Cinematography was by David M. Walsh (Monte Walsh (1970), I Walk the Line (1970)) and Music by Charles Fox

The film stars Walter Matthau (A Face in the Crowd, Slaughter on 10th Avenue, Charade, Mirage, Charley Varrick, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, original) as Sgt. Jake Martin, Bruce Dern (The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Family Plot, Mulholland Falls, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as Insp. Leo Larsen, Louis Gossett Jr. (Skin Game) as Insp. James Larrimore, Anthony Zerbe (Cool Hand Luke) as Lt. Nat Steiner, Albert Paulsen (The Manchurian Candidate) as Henry Camerero, Val Avery (Hud, Sylvia) as Insp. John Pappas, Paul Koslo as Duane Haygood, Cathy Lee Crosby as Kay Butler, Joanna Cassidy (Blade Runner, Too Late) as Monica, Clifton James as Maloney, Gregory Sierra as Ken Vickery, Matt Clark as the Coroner. 

Here's a Seventies Neo Noir that's been pretty much forgotten. I had read the Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall novel when it was published in English in 1970 before the film was made and had hoped the story would be filmed. The cool part about it was that it took place in the snow in Stockholm. 

When I read that the film was going to set in San Francisco I got less enthused. By that time I was in Montana and not every film made it to Missoula. I don't remember it playing. So it either probably didn't, or it may have come out in the summer when I was working out in a spike camp in the Clearwater drainage out of Kamiah, Idaho. I may have caught it on TV some years later, but this was way before I got interested in Films Noir. 

Walter Matthau as Sgt. Jake Martin

Bruce Dern as Insp. Leo Larsen

Louis Gossett Jr. as Insp. James Larimore

Story

The old San Francisco Transbay Terminal, Mission Street, San Francisco. Gus Niles is being tailed by Dave Evans.  Niles goes into a phone booth and makes a call. 

San Francisco Transbay Terminal

Anthony Costello as Dave Evans

Louis Guss as Gus Niles

We can just hear Niles end of the conversation. "Yea he's following just like you said he would. Okay." He hangs up and walks over to a candy machine. Buys a candy bar. Then goes up the stairway and onto a 1955 Mack C-49 bus, line 14 Mission Street.

I used to ride on a Mack C-49 every day that I went to high school. They were built like a tank, solid and tough. Rolled, rocked, and swayed down the road like a boat. had a nice throaty diesel rumble with four leave folding doors that hissed open and hissed closed. They had a pull cord above the windows that you could use to indicate to the driver that you wanted to get off at the next stop. I used to catch one on Ditmars Blvd. in Astoria and ride it to the 31st el stop to catch a BMT train into the city (Manhattan). Know them well and nice to see one in detail the film. 

Evan's runs up to late to catch the bus it's just pulling out. Curiously Gus Niles pulls the cord to stop the bus and the driver hits the lever for the four leaf pneumatic door, and lets him on.

 Mack C-49

Evans eyes Gus as he passes down the aisle and sits next to girl right opposite the rear exit rather than in one of the many empty bench seats around her. 

The bus heads out of the terminal and South down Mission. The bus passes a 1973 Chevrolet Caprice Classic parked by a curve. It's motor catches, the lights flash on and it pulls out following the Mack.

The Caprice passes the bus then pulls over to the curb at a bus stop ahead of the bus. The light go out. The driver wearing a trench coat and carrying a leather satchel hops out and get on the bus. We always see him from the chest down and never his face. 

He walks towards the rear of the bus. The bus starts again down it route. Niles looks at the man as he passes with an obvious look of recognition. This is the plan. The man sits at the rear of the bus, He opens the satchel and begins to assemble a Smith & Wesson M76 with a folding stock. 

The bus stops and picks up another passenger.  The trench coat man loads the M76 with a clip. He stands up. Niles sees him. This is not the plan. 

Not yet!

Niles stand up and has time to say "Not yet." The M76 begins to bark lead. How about that, a prescient moment to now, in a film from 1973.

He riddles the bus killing Niles, Evans, the driver, little old ladies, just about everybody. The bus, out of control, threads a needle between parked cars and finally jumps the curb, plows through a wall and ends up nesting in a vest pocket park in Chinatown. 

The rear four leave door hisses open and we see the trenchcoat wearing man step down off the bus, again carrying the leather satchel, and melt away into the city.

An older Chinese gentleman hurries down the street towards the accident.

Now begins a sequence that's another showpiece of what are termed "police procedurals." Naked City (1948) is another Classic example of this type of Noir. It consists of detailed vignettes of the various investigative procedures taken by the police at a crime scene. The police arrive. The unmarked detective sedan has a solid red light shining through the windshield. 

Uniform patrolmen. Ambulances. Medical personnel go through the bus looking for any survivors among the victims. One old guy is taken to an ambulance. Next a police photographer starts taking pictures of the mass shooting scene, the victims, the evidence, the bus. 

Once the crime scene photographer's done the detectives comb through the carnage detailing everything. Rosenberg is passing us information the way Robert Altman did in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, we overhear various snatches of conversation as the detectives discuss and note names, belongings, wounds, etc., etc of each of the victims. In another vignette we see a coroner man throw back a sheet them gently unlace a victims shoe remove it remove the sock and place it in the shoe. Then he places the shoe alongside the foot. Finally around the big toe of the victim he wires a toe tag identifying the body.

Through this sequence we meet Detective Sgt. Jake Martin a by the book detective, who is obsessively haunted by a past case that he couldn't solve, Insp. Leo Larsen a bend the rules to get results type of cop, Insp. James Larrimore a cool cat cop, along with Insp. John Pappas, Inspector Russo, Inspector Lou Terry, and Inspector Tom Brennan, of Lt. Nat Steiner's Homicide Squad. 

It all goes immediately Noirsville when Jake Martin is examining one of the victims slumped over with his head hide. As Jake is patting the victims coat, he finds a shoulder holster and in the holster a Smith & Wesson Model 15 snub nose - .38 Special. A cop gun. He turns the guy over and fuck oh dear, it's Dave Evans, his partner! Jake is stunned. The detectives are stunned and Steiner's job has just gotten exponentially harder. 

Dave Evans

Dave. His partner who was on sick leave. His partner. Who when Jake later questions Kay Butler, Evan's girlfriend, tells him that she thought he was working the last two weeks as usual. His partner. Who when Jake later aks Lt. Steiner if he was working a special assignment tells him no, and then berates him for not knowing what the fuck his partner was up to. And what the fuck was he doing on that bus? 

Steiner assigns Leo to be Jake's new partner. They don't exactly hit it off at first. 

We go through another Robert Altman style sequence in the morgue. The autopsy of the victims and again we are getting clue info in various overheard morgue procedurals. A coroners audio, noting what he is doing, detectives discussing various theories, others making lists of victims belongings. A victim named Avakian was quite the playboy with an unopened bottle of Chivas Regal and a half dozen condoms. Another a kid looked like he was high on reds. Another Robert Altman style sequence takes place in the emergency room it homages those from M*A*S*H. 

Once the detectives have identified everyone they go to ask more questions of their friends and relatives and hopefully get clues. From Schwermer the one living victim's deathbed statement, they think they get a name. One of the detectives is assigned to figure out what. Jake goes to interview Avakian's brother Samuel, a manager at the Victory Burlesque theater, etc., etc. 

This is another film that has so much interesting sequences and short vignettes most pertaining to the investigation, that you really get a feel of what being a police detective on a case is dealing with professionally and personally. Examples. A short vignette of the way a coroner man gentilly un-laces a shoe, removes the man's sock, puts the sock in the shoe and then wraps the metal wire of a toe tag to the body. When Jake and Leo are interviewing Bobby Mow (an informer) at an outdoor restaurant, we get, in background shots a bit of  the zeitgeist of "gay" San Francisco. In another we watch Jake watch as Jake's teenage son takes in a prono floorshow. When Larrimore cleans out Jake's partner Evan's desk he finds an envelope nude pictures of a blonde woman and another brunette. Larrimore shows Jake what he found. Jake tells Larrimore the blonde is Evan's gal pal, and the brunette is Teresa Camerero. WTF is Evan doing with Teresa Camereo's photo?  

Jake eventually digs out out from Kay that Evans was working "his" Teresa Camerero case. The three year old cold case he couldn't make. We guess he was trying to prove himself to Jake. Jake figures now that it has to tie in somehow to Teresa Camerero. 

Noirsville  

 

Stuart Rosenberg and David M. Walsh made an impressive looking Neo Noir film that along with the  acting of Matthau and Dern whose initial conflicting idiosyncrasies and differing MO's make a compelling story.  Lou Gossett Jr, Anthony Zerbe and the rest of the supporting cast are excellent and that makes this Neo Noir a winner. 9/10

Unjustly obscure police depiction

Poseidon-35 November 2003

For some reason, this crime drama is almost completely overlooked. Even though it has it's faults, it is mostly a terrific examination of a police investigation. (In fact, in Australia, it was titled "Investigation of a Murder" which is far more apt a title than what it is here.) Matthau plays a police detective whose partner has been gunned down in a mass murder aboard a city bus. He is paired with Dern to find out if there's a connection between the massacre and the policeman's presence on the bus. They form an uneasy alliance (due to their clashing personalities and styles of working) and attempt to solve the baffling case. Gossett makes a strong impression as a fellow detective, though his character sort of drifts out of the picture at some point. Crosby and Cassidy have small, early roles as women who were affected by the murders. What's brilliant about the film is the wondrous verisimilitude and almost complete authenticity of the settings and performances. Only occasionally, can someone be caught "acting". Most of the time, the camera acts in an almost documentary fashion, eavesdropping on the various events and conversations. This type of gritty, realistic, matter-of-fact film is simply not made anymore today. The comparatively simple bus massacre is more striking and vivid than any of the overdone action scenes that litter all of today's films. There's a stark quality to the production that fits it well. Where the film strays is in it's endless cop vignettes which don't always have anything to do with the plot and which distract from, rather than enhance, the story. It's as if the writers tried to include too much from the source novel and wound up muddying the waters of the primary story. This also makes the film hard to follow at times. What's priceless is the display of the unmistakably tacky clothes and furnishings of the 1970's. There are also amusing glimpses into the San Francisco gay bar scene with real patrons displaying their faces (sometimes made up in drag) before the camera. Matthau says little in the film, but holds the attention with his various personal demons and conflicts. He chews gum incessantly and listens to standards on his radio to keep his emotions in check. Dern, as a more lively sort, is a great counterpoint and holds his own nicely. The mystery winds up being not all that big a mystery at all, but there's still a decent payoff with a "French Connection-esquire" car chase through San Francisco.