The Lineup (1958)

With its emphasis on realism, action that takes place in the daylight and location work, this crime thriller bears all the hallmarks of a docu-noir and the "police procedural" style of its opening scenes reinforces this impression. The movie begins with some fast action and a couple of fatalities which are soon found to be linked to the activities of an international drug-smuggling operation.At San Francisco's Pier 41, a ship's porter suddenly snatches a passenger's bag and throws it into the back of a waiting taxicab which drives off at great speed and runs down a police officer. The cab driver, who is shot by the dying cop, then dies at the wheel and his vehicle comes to a sudden halt when it collides with a steel-fence barrier. Detective Lieutenant Ben Guthrie (Warren Anderson) and his partner, Inspector Al Quine (Emile Meyer), discover that heroin had been concealed in a statuette that was being carried in the stolen bag and so question its owner. From their investigations, it soon becomes clear that unsuspecting tourists are being used to smuggle heroin into the United States from the Far East and that later, members of the criminal organisation are being used to recover the drugs from the innocent mules.After the financial loss incurred by the fiasco at Pier 41, the smugglers bring in a couple of hit-men from Miami to ensure that the next three consignments are collected promptly and efficiently. Dancer (Eli Wallach) a volatile psychopath who travels to San Francisco with his mentor, Julian (Robert Keith), makes his first two collections without too much trouble (despite having to kill two people in the process). The third collection involves a woman called Dorothy Bradshaw (Mary LaRoche) who had just arrived back in the U.S. with her daughter Cindy (Cheryl Callaway). The heroin in this case had been hidden in the little girl's Japanese doll, but when the inside of the doll is checked, it's found to be empty. It subsequently comes to light that Cindy had found the packet inside the doll and assuming that it was make-up, had powdered the doll's face with it. Julian persuades Dancer not to kill Dorothy and Cindy because they can be used to convince their employer that they weren't responsible for the loss of the valuable consignment.Having kidnapped Dorothy and Cindy, the two hit-men make their way to Sutro's museum where they're due to drop off the drugs at a pre-arranged location for subsequent collection by their crime boss who's known simply as "The Man" (Vaughn Taylor). Dancer, in a departure from the instructions he was given, waits to meet "The Man" who is completely uninterested in listening to any explanations for the non-delivery of part of the heroin consignment and this leads to a shocking incident before Dancer leaves the building and then immediately finds himself in a frantic car chase as he, Julian, Dorothy, Cindy and their wheel-man Sandy McLain (Richard Jaeckel) are all pursued at high speed by the cops who have finally tracked them down."The Lineup" contains a surprising number of memorable scenes. Examples of this are the ways in which three of the killings are staged as two involve victims who fall spectacularly to their deaths and another involves a servant who tries to escape a hit-man by running up a flight of stairs. When the shooting takes place, the hit-man is seen at ground-level and simultaneously, the reflection of his victim is seen one floor higher. Impressively and despite the distance between them, both men are captured in the same shot by courtesy of a strategically-placed wall mirror.The meeting involving Dancer and "The Man" provides another standout sequence which gets incredibly tense when the violent thug (Dancer) starts to feel tremendously threatened by the wheelchair-bound crime boss and of course, the car chase that brings the movie to its climax is exciting, well-choreographed and illuminated by some special moments (e.g. when the criminals narrowly avoid a fall of about 50 feet when their car unexpectedly reaches the end of an unfinished, elevated highway).There's a sharp distinction between the cops and the criminals in this movie because the detectives are rather grim-looking and world-weary whereas the criminals (especially Dancer and Julian) are full of eccentricities that make them far more interesting to watch. Predictably therefore, it's the performances of Robert Keith and especially Eli Wallach that make the greatest impact and in so doing, add tremendous colour to this fine, fast-moving and violent thriller which must've been pretty edgy for the period in which it was made.

The Lineup is directed by Don Siegel and written by Stirling Silliphant. It stars Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Warner Anderson and Richard Jaeckel. Music is by Mischa Bakaleinkoff and cinematography by Hal Mohr.A drug smuggling gang are planting heroin on returning American tourists so as to get the merchandise through customs. Two hired hands, Dancer & Julian (Wallach & Keith respectively) then locate the unsuspecting tourists and reclaim the hidden drugs. But in this moment, with new driver Sandy McLain (Jaeckel) behind the wheel, things are not going to go to plan.It came at a time when the classic noir cycle was drawing to a close, when the dark alleyways had been replaced by sun brightened streets, but The Lineup is still clinical film noir. Originally a police procedural series that was poplar both on radio and TV, the film version keeps the police on the edges of the frame whilst studying the psychological make-ups of the criminal players. Expertly using real San Francisco locations as the backdrop, Siegel takes Silliphant's spicy script and unfurls a plot of bizarre like twists that are in turn cloaked with devilish noir substance.The four crims that form the core of the story are most intriguing players. Mclain the hapless getaway driver is in over his head, Dancer is always one push away from being a psychotic basket case and Julian is aged, wise and playing cards close to his chest. It's with the relationship between Dancer & Julian where things are shaded most darkly. Dancer announces to a secondary character (and us of course) that an absent father torments his inner being, armed with this knowledge it's then easy to view the Dancer/Julian relationship as father and son like, this even if Dancer is almost impossible to love. Julian constantly tries to keep Dancer correct and in line, even attempting to make him socially acceptable. Is it a lost cause? Well all these things come to an attention grabbing head in the excellent last quarter.MTH889Then there is The Man (Vaughn Taylor), a person we only hear about for the most part for he's not introduced until late in the day. He is the guy that Julian & Dancer work for, a shifty Godfather type we believe, as do the hired hands, but Dancer's curiosity gnaws away at him, as it does us the viewers. But when the inevitable happens, Siegel and Sillipant produce another strong film noir character, a pitiless soul who is the catalyst for our trip down bleakville highway, where the cityscape backdrop proves expansive to us, but for Dancer, Julian & Sandy it's an enclosed tomb. 8/10

In San Francisco, two police inspectors (Marshall Reed and Emile Meyer) are on the case when a rogue taxi driver, with the help of a rogue porter, manages to steal the suitcase of an antiques collector before running down a cop, whose dying gesture is to shoot the cabbie dead. The inspectors discover that a statuette in the suitcase contains heroin. Meanwhile, a psychopathic gangster (Eli Wallach), his malignant mentor (Robert Keith) and their dipsomaniac driver (Richard Jaeckel) have the job of picking up the other heroin shipments, hidden in the luggage of unsuspecting travelers. All goes well until they attempt to retrieve the heroin stuffed in a Japanese doll. A little girl and her young mother (Cheryl Callaway and Mary LaRoche) have the doll, but when the crooks take possession of it, they find that the heroin has mysteriously vanished.Don Siegel, working from a script by Stirling Silliphant, does a bang-up job directing this explosive crime thriller, which is filled with violent action, surprise plot twists, a spectacular murder in an indoor ice rink and a great climactic car chase. The characters of the police inspectors are carried over from the same-titled TV series, but unlike the show, the movie is mainly concerned with the criminals. Wallach is the star, brilliantly portraying a dangerous man who can be calm, even genial, but reveals his true nature when others try to push him around. The cadaverous Keith is properly ghoulish, especially while taking note of the day's victims' dying words. Callaway proves to be a very adept child actress, while her lovely screen mother, LaRoche (who also had trouble with her daughter's doll in a "Twilight Zone" episode), ably performs the difficult task of remaining in a perpetual state of panic.The plot requires a fairly high suspension of disbelief, especially considering the general air of realism, but few will gripe about plausibility in this exciting action drama.

I actually saw this movie at the cinema, hauled off by my father who was an avid gangster-junkie. That was way back when you got two movies in the programme. I'm not sure if this was the 'A' or the 'B' item, but its unmemorable companion was called 'The Gun-Runners'.It was also my introduction to Eli Wallach. And I never forgot it.The plot entailed heroin-smuggling, something most people didn't quite understand in those days. Wallach and his mentor were using innocent mules to take bags of the stuff ashore to avoid suspicion and capture by the customs. Then they had to get them back. But the best laid plans, etc etc.Wallach's character is evidently pathological, and he plays it with a frightfully convincing panache. Don't ever get him angry...His older sidekick is scarcely less bonkers, and whilst counselling restraint on the one hand, eagerly keeps a journal of every victim's last words.People get killed in the drug business. An intermediary who they try to meet is so furious at his exposure that he slaps Wallach's face. He pays for it by being kicked through a balustrade onto an ice-rink 2 or 3 floors below.In another extremely harrowing scene, they try to retrieve a bag of dope from the child of a young widow they befriended en-route. The bag is supposed to be hidden in her doll. Unfortunately, she has discovered it and used it all up, supposing it to be a toy face-powder. The rapid disintegration of their urbane bonhomie into a doll-shredding black fury as the child and her mother look on in tearful horror, is one of the most frightful scenes in movie drama. Tarentino couldn't better it. But it's all the more shocking for its appearance in the staid 1950's.And there's plenty more where that came from.This is one of the hardest-edged noir movies and its absence from DVD is incomprehensible. Believe me; if you haven't seen it and you're a fan of the genre, you've no idea what you're missing.Don't go talking to strangers, now.