The Lineup (1958)In San Francisco, a psychopathic gangster and his mentor retrieve heroin packages carried by unsuspecting travelers. Director:Don SiegelWriter:Stirling Silliphant |
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The Lineup (1958)In San Francisco, a psychopathic gangster and his mentor retrieve heroin packages carried by unsuspecting travelers. Director:Don SiegelWriter:Stirling Silliphant |
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| Cast overview: | |||
| Eli Wallach | ... |
Dancer
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Robert Keith | ... |
Julian
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| Richard Jaeckel | ... |
Sandy McLain
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Mary LaRoche | ... |
Dorothy Bradshaw
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William Leslie | ... |
Larry Warner
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Emile Meyer | ... |
Insp. Al Quine
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Marshall Reed | ... |
Insp. Fred Asher
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| Raymond Bailey | ... |
Philip Dressler
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| Vaughn Taylor | ... |
The Man
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Cheryl Callaway | ... |
Cindy Bradshaw
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Robert Bailey | ... |
Staples
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Warner Anderson | ... |
Lt. Ben Guthrie
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In San Francisco, two police inspectors 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, his malignant mentor and their dipsomaniac driver 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 lovely young mother have the doll, but when the crooks take possession of it, they find that the heroin has mysteriously vanished. Written by J. Spurlin
Heroin from Asia is flooding into San Francisco, carried in souvenirs and curios packed by unwitting mules. When the mules arrive home to kick back after their peregrinations around the Pacific Rim, they are paid an unexpected and usually unpleasant visit by a team of psycho-killers named Dancer and Julian (Eli Wallach and Robert Keith, respectively), who collect the precious narcotic. Wallach is forever on the edge of detonation, so it takes the patient ministrations of Keith to soothe him down and keep him on task; their relationship suggests that of an old queen dealing with rough trade. (Their young driver, Richard Jaeckel -- best remembered as the young Turk in Come Back, Little Sheba -- adds to the homoerotic tone, as does a violent scene in a steambath). Don Siegel goads the action along and knows what he's doing every step of the way. The Lineup marks a no-man's-land between classic film noir, which had pretty much ground to a halt, and the flatter, faster and more sensational thrillers that the early 1960s would bring; in its more modest way, it foreshadows later movies like The Detective, Bullitt and The French Connection.