Busting (1974)

Pretty decent cop flick with Elliott Gould and Robert Blake. Director Peter Hyams first movie. It's rather dark and gritty, with some humor supplied by the two stars. Plot-wise it's pretty standard fair. There's a lot of crime and corruption in L.A. and vice cops Keneely and Farrel decide to do something about it. There's some shooting, good chase scenes, strippers and more, everything you'd expect in a 1970s cop movie. But overall it's pretty downbeat and cynical. Very nice camera work with a lot of long takes and interesting angles. Good supporting cast, especially Allen Garfield as crime boss Carl Rizzo. And Elliott Gould wears a funny hat.

Elliott Gould with mustache and hat, having a brew.

They Call Me Mister Tibbs (1970) - murder meets interior design, and comes up short

A decent cop movie with Sidney Poitier playing it cool. A good supporting cast with Martin Landau, Barbara McNair, Anthony Zerbe, and a hairy-headed Ed Asner. Directed well by Gordon Douglas, and music by Quincy Jones is always good. Script is unremarkable though, and the murder story could have been used in any number of cop television shows from that era. There's a good car chase, a long foot chase, and a couple of fist fights. We also see Tibbs with his family on several occasions, mainly working out a relationship with his young and unmindful son. The movie never really catches fire, and the ending kind of fizzles. The most fun for me was taking in the early 70s interior design. Browns and drab greens dominate, with a splash of orange thrown in to brighten things up. And some cool lamps.

The Blue Hammer by Ross Macdonald (1976) - a steady pulse

This was the last Lew Archer novel by Ross Macdonald. Published in 1976 it takes place in California with a little jaunt over to Arizona. Private detective Archer is hired to recover a stolen painting and return it to its rightful owners. Sounds simple enough but the case soon turns deadly. What follows is a  complicated and rather confusing crime drama which will involve four murders, fratricide, thievery, blackmail, a cult (in a very minor role to be sure), kidnapping, stolen identities and generally bad behavior by many individuals. Lew has a tough time trying to piece it all together and to complicate things further he falls for a dame.

 

Macdonald (real name Kenneth Millar, 1915-1983) is an excellent writer and he holds this twisting plot together brilliantly. Written in the first person, Archer is quite likeable, a tough guy but very human, hardboiled but compassionate. He's getting older and ruminates a lot. There is actually very little violence (the murders all take place away from Archer) and Lew spends more time trying to stop fights than start them. The cast of characters is quite colorful and all are well drawn. While it is a little hard to keep track of everybody, and their relationship to each other, Macdonald (via Archer) manages, after a few more twists, to lay it all out for you in the end.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Absolutely one of my favorite movies of the 1970s. I saw this when it first came out in 1974. I thought it was terribly exciting then and I still find it quite gripping.  Directed by Joseph Sargent with the great cast of Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam and Hector Elizondo. Filled with gritty tension and smart dialogue, I think this is one the best crime dramas of all time. Robert Shaw leads a group of mustachioed men who hijack a New York City subway train and hold the passengers hostage. The facial hair is a disguise and they all go by a color for a name (Mr. Blue, Mr. Green etc. Tarantino paid homage to that in Reservoir Dogs).  Walter Matthau is on the other side as the head of security negotiating with the hijackers. You do get a little humor on that side, especially with some of the supporting actors like Lee Wallace as The Mayor. It's all serious business in the subway train however as Shaw and Elizondo are especially uncompromising and menacing. The pacing is perfect with scenes going back and forth between the bad guys and the good guys. The soundtrack, composed and conducted by David Shire, is also excellent.

 

I saw the 2009 remake of this not too long ago and it was predictably bad. Tony Scott's over-the-top directing and John Tavolta's over-the-top acting pretty much kill the story. Everything is turned up to eleven and all the subtle menace is lost. As for the cast, the rest of the bad guys were pretty unremarkable. The good guys were better, with Denzel Washington, John Turturro and James Gandolfini all quite likeable. I saw this just a few months ago and I don't remember much else. It just didn't make an impression on me. Overall another pointless remake not worth watching except to compare to the original to see how much better that one was.