The Laughing Policeman (1973) User Reviews

An absorbing 70s crime drama.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 5 May 2014]

Admittedly, the pace of "The Laughing Policeman" is pretty slow, but this is a well plotted murder mystery that gets a lot of juice from the marvelous chemistry between investigating detectives Walter Matthau (as Jake Martin) and Bruce Dern (as Leo Larsen). The supporting cast is likewise excellent and full of familiar faces. Producer / director / uncredited screenwriter Stuart Rosenberg makes great use of San Francisco locations, and keeps viewers intrigued with the police procedural aspect to the tale. The violence is pretty potent, and there's a certain amusement in seeing detectives Martin and Larsen work their way through the seedier environments of SF.

As the movie opens, a cop named Evans (Anthony Costello) follows a man named Niles (Louis Guss) onto a city bus; soon, a character known to Niles gets on board and pumps several passengers full of holes, including Evans and Niles. Martin, who happened to be Evans' partner, gets newly paired up with Larsen to work the case as their superior (Anthony Zerbe) demands results.

What's a joy here is seeing this cast at work. Matthau and Dern contrast nicely; what we come to know about Martin is that despite having a home and family, he's pretty much devoted to his job. Louis Gossett Jr. is fun as one of their colleagues; also making appearances are Val Avery, Cathy Lee Crosby, Mario Gallo, Joanna Cassidy, Paul Koslo, Frances Lee McCain, Clifton James, Gregory Sierra, Warren Finnerty, Matt Clark, and Wayne Grace. Albert Paulsen ("The Manchurian Candidate") has the most interesting role seeing that he actually has next to nothing in the way of dialogue.

The movie may get a little repetitive as it comes full circle at the end, but taking everything into consideration it's a good and solid example of its genre.

Based on the novel "Den Skrattande Polisen" by authors Per Wahloo & Maj Sjowall.

Seven out of 10.

Worth two looks

[brian-nestor-1 · 7/10 · 14 July 2008]

I just got back from San Francisco and decided to watch this again. To my surprise, I liked it much more the second time.

Make no mistake, this is not a great flick, but it is an interesting one. There are a ton of false leads in the beginning of the movie and we don't even get to the meat of the plot - the killer, for instance - until way into the running time. If you like logical and linear plots, this one will disappoint.

But there a couple of very good points. First, the ensemble cast is great. The range of characters keeps things interesting. Lou Gossett, Jr. gets a very meaty part before disappearing. Joanna Cassidy is also good in a brief role.

The highlight of the film is the relationship between Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern. Dern gets to play an early non-psycho but he is a total jerk. Yet by the end of the film you wind up liking him. Matthau is worse - he never smiles and is totally cut off from his fellow officers and his family. He can't even confront his teenage son. Watching these two make an uneasy truce and develop a relationship is what the movie really is about.

The bad news is that, except for the opening sequence, the action scenes are flat - not terrible, just flat. There are a lot of loose ends floating through the plot and characters disappear at random.

Perhaps most interesting is the parallel between this film's style and the Italian Giallo genre going on a the same time. The black gloved killer, the grim detective, even the plot holes would be right at place in an Argento movie from 1973, not a Hollywood film.

Worth two looks.

Slaughter in the Bus

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 20 April 2020]

In San Francisco, eight passengers and the driver of a bus are killed by a passenger with machine gun. Police detectives Jake Martin (Walter Matthau), Leo Larsen (Bruce Dern) and James Larrimore (Lou Gossett) find the body of Martin´s partner Dave Evans (Anthony Costello) among the victims. Lieutenant Steiner (Anthony Zerbe) assigns Larsen to be the new partner of Martin, who is obsessed by the murder of his former partner. He meets Evans' girlfriend that believed he was working in overtime with Martin. Now the detective is convinced that Evans was investigating the wealthy Camerero (Albert Paulsen), who was the prime suspect of a murder case two years ago.

"The Laughing Policeman" is a gloomy and gritty crime story with Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern in the leading role. The beginning is promissing with the massacre of passengers in a San Francisco bus. The pace is slow, and the plot is realistic, but dated. However, there are many parts that go nowhere, such as Larrimore with the pimp or the meeting with the Hell's Angels or the relationship of Jake Martin with his family. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Matança em São Francisco" ("Slaughter in San Francisco")

From the golden age of urban American film

[harry-150 · 23 June 2002]

From a period before marketing departments and focus groups took over the movie industry and began pumping out formulaic happy-ended regurgitated baby food, The Laughing Policeman offers gritty urban drama, acted by the great character actors of the day, actors that filled out such classics as The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon...

It's shortcomings are there, to be sure, but as a stylistic gem - as a sample of the type of movies they just don't or can't make anymore, it's worth watching. Matthau is as angry and as serious as you've ever seen him - a performance sterner that even the MTA traffic official in The Taking of Pelham 123.

There is no formula here - no overbearing Sargent hanging over the detectives, no goofing off in the office downtown to lighten things up. No romantic interest or hot sex scene crammed in between bullets.This is reality, harsh and complicated - if you can handle it, that is.

No Laughing Matter

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 19 April 2005]

(Some Spoilers) Parking his car just before the #14 bus reached the bus stop the killer calmly walks in takes a seat and assembles his semi-automatic "grease gun". Then without saying a word opens fire on the passengers and bus driver killing all but one of them, an elderly survivor later died at the hospital, on the spot as the bus crashed into a small Chinatown park. On the scene of the massacre is SFPD Let. Jake Martin, Walter Matthau, who after inspecting the victims of the "Death Bus" is shocked to find that one of them is Det. Dave Evens, Anthony Costello, is his partner! What was Evens doing on that bus?

Going to see his live-in girlfriend Kay Butler, Cathy Lee Crosby, Let. Martin finds that Evens who was out sick for the entire week. Telling her that he was on the Teresa Camerero case a case that was adjudicated almost two years ago? Teresa was murdered and her husband Henry, Albert Paulsen, who was tried for her murder but was found innocent in a court of law. What's even more ironic is that the star witness who got Henry off with the alibi that he was with him at the time of Teresa's murder was Gus Niles, Louis Guss! Who just happened to be one of those who were killed like Evens on bus #14!

Let. Martin and his new partner SFPD inspector Leo Larsen, Bruce Dern, are put on the "Death Bus" case and they painstakingly tie the Teresa Camerero murder to it. Not only that but that Det. Evens had a very personal relationship with Teresa and was on his own, without the go ahead from his police superiors, out to solve her murder and it was that very reason that lead to his death.

Slow moving but effective police/crime/drama with Let. Martin and Inspector Larsen as the oddest of odd partners with Martin not saying a word unless he absolutely has to. and Larsen never keeping his mouth shut for even a second. Going through the sleazy sex parlors and seedy bars nightclubs of San Francisco the two track down the killer but are unable to arrest him until he breaks the law again.

It turned that the killer was acting in concert with Niles to get Evens on the bus in order to murder him. We even see Niles acknowledged the killer as he entered the bus. What did happen was that Niles was double-crossed by the killer as he opened fire on everyone on board including him. Thus having Niles not around to finger him in case he later wanted to make a deal with the police in order to save his neck from ending up in the San Quinten gas chamber.

The ending of "The Laughing Policeman" is a bit overdone with a totally unnecessary car chase sequence as well as a repeat of the bus massacre that began the film. But this time around it was the killer, not the innocent passengers and bus driver, who got massacred.

Slow thriller but still a good movie!

[TheSilentBlur · 6/10 · 22 December 2011]

Jake Martin (Walter Mattau) investigates massacre that took the lives of eight people on a city bus. One of those victims was Jake's partner, Detective Evans, who was supposed to be called in sick. The question is: what was Detective Evans doing on the bus when the shooting occurred? Jake's colleagues: Leo Larsen (Bruce Dern), James Larrimore (Lou Goessett Jr.) help him on the cast leading to various places throughout San Francisco

"The Laughing Policeman" is a police procedural film that runs at a slow pace, which made it difficult to follow sometimes especially with the leads the characters have on the case. This bothered me a bit - maybe it has something to do with my generation's attention span? But the slow pace allowed us as viewers to see police procedural of the early 70s. While today's police procedural films (and TV shows) rely on technology to aid on a case, back then it seem that the police will take anything necessary to get the bad guy in; relying on gut feeling. We also get to know about the characters' lives in their police work - how they hate their job while going after the killer.

"The Laughing Policeman" is worth watching despite of the slow pacing. The actors who play their roles have done a great job getting the audiences' attention to the scene. The plot will keep you guessing until the end.

Shooting Up A Bus

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 15 July 2006]

One terrible night in San Francisco in the mid seventies, a man who had a terrible secret to hide and a high position from which to tumble from took a machine gun and massacred everyone on a city bus. Of course this gets all the SFPD Homicide Squad working on it.

Partnered together for convenience are Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern. Matthau's partner is one of the dead passengers and he's single minded in his pursuit. Dern and he don't really get along. I've a feeling they wouldn't have under normal circumstances, but they do manage to work together.

The Laughing Policeman is as one reviewer said is a nice view of San Francisco in the early seventies. All that seemed to be missing was Candlestick Park. I was in San Francisco in 2000 and I recognized a lot of it myself.

Matthau and Dern fill their roles well. Matthau is somewhat against type, a lot of the laconic humor that characterized him on screen is missing here. Dern is not the most admirable character in the world. He's a harbinger of what we later got on NYPD Blue with Andy Sipowicz. One would hope he might have grown in character over the years as Sipowicz did.

Anthony Zerbe heads the Homicide Squad and Lou Gossett, Jr. and Val Avery are also detectives working on this. They fit the police roles well.

Funny how life does imitate art. In just a few years Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone would be assassinated, there would be riots with verdict of that trial, and Jim Jones who had his operation in San Francisco before moving to Guiana and mass suicide. The real happenings for San Francisco made this bus shooting seem like nothing.

Dozens of dead ends ....

[merklekranz · 7/10 · 25 October 2019]

High octane cast in a drawn out police investigation, will definitely test the patience of some. This is not, I repeat not, your typical renegade cop pursuing justice outside the law. What "The Laughing Policeman" is, is a methodical investigation of a mass slaying on a San Francisco bus. With no witness help, starting from scratch, Walter Matthau plays his hunches, which often go nowhere, but eventually things begin to crystalize. His new partner, Bruce Dern is mostly just along for the ride, until he eventually becomes an important part of Matthau's investigation. The acting is solid, with support from the likes of Anthony Zerbe, Paul Koslo, and Lou Gossett. Those who don't need instant action will be rewarded by the logic, others will find things rather tedious. - MERK

The Laughing Policeman

[ashleyallinson · 8/10 · 8 February 2005]

This sullen, violent police drama is as detailed an investigation as you will find on film. The opening scene of The Laughing Policeman is extremely tense and sets the tone for a Dirty-Harry-style flick that delivers one of Matthau's moodiest performances. Basically, a mass murder takes place on a San Francisco bus, and we find out that a policeman was one of the victims. He turns out to be Matthau's late partner. Bruce Dern is assigned to be his new partner, working with Matthau, a conflict of interest, to find out why this SFPD detective was on the bus in the first place. Their subsequent relationship is a play the standard, portrayed in the Laughing Policeman as "mute cop/bad cop". So, teams of gritty cops (a young Lou Gossett) meander through the roughest neighborhoods of San Francisco bullying pimps, pushers, hip drag queens and sidewalking street-wheelers in an attempt uncover what turns out to be a very complex underworld fraternity. The purpose (seeing as this plays as a Matthau character study), to quell Matthau's melancholic contribution to this Dirty Harry spin-off. It is more violent and much more precise than Dirty Hary but not as entertaining. A must see, however, for all Matthau fans.

No Laughing Matter

[brileyvandyke · 7/10 · 27 January 2022]

The early to mid 70's saw a boom of detective films and in 1973 The Laughing Policeman, directed by Stewart Rosenberg, was released as a hard hitting whodunnit.

The film begins with a horrific machine gun wielding mystery man opening fire on a public bus in San Francisco. Once the police are on the scene they are especially shocked to see among the victims one of their own killed in the slaughter. The fallen officer was a partner of Jake Martin, played by Walter Matthau. The story focuses on detectives Martin and Leo Larsen, played by Bruce Dern, as they hit the underbelly of San Francisco searching for suspects of this crime. Matthau vacillates between taciturn and belligerent and plays Jake Martin as a man who has seen a lot and is affected by little. Bruce Dern plays Larsen with a kind of energy and zeal. He is both tough and wise-cracking. The two play off each other quite effectively.

Louis Gossett Jr has a role as a detective and his character is quite strong and intuitive. You really get a feel for San Francisco's dark side in this picture. All kinds of shady characters are sought after and shook down, however if you aren't paying attention closely you may find yourself lost with the twists and turns of the plot. The case is finally solved and the mystery man revealed, but I will leave it at that.

Finally, as an honorable mention Paul Koslo has a small role in this as, what else a shady drug dealer? Koslo is a favorite character actor of mine and I enjoy seeing him in films.

Overall this is a good film, but you must stay with it or it may lose you. Fun to see Matthau play non comedic roles, and Bruce Dern is damn good. No laughing, just a complex and intense story.

Not even close

[birck · 4/10 · 19 September 2008]

On the strength of Walter Matthau's ability with a character, the strong cast list, and the original Swedish crime novel-which was excellent-I watched the whole thing, unfortunately. As someone else on this forum noted, it works well for about the first 15-20 minutes, then decays into pointlessness. The main character's partner, played by Bruce Dern, is brought up short repeatedly when he makes wrong moves with witnesses, or says the wrong thing, so often that I expected an explosion. Which never came, and that thread finally went nowhere. A meeting with a group of Hell's Angels went nowhere, at least for the story. I could handle the dated costumes and social norms, but after an hour or so, it seemed as if that's all the film had to offer-a tour of SF's colorful corners in the Haight-Ashbury era, with a tacked-on murder mystery that came to no satisfying conclusion. It isn't necessary for every film-made-from-a-novel to stick exactly to the original, word-for-word, but the only good part of this film was that first 15-20 minutes, which is transported fairly closely from Stockholm, where the original was set, to San Francisco. Once the bus has crashed, and the dead passengers have been identified, It goes rolling straight down Potrero Hill and into the Bay.

70's crime drama that's one of a kind, Matthau style

[PeterMitchell-506-564364 · 8/10 · 18 February 2013]

I've seen this movie only a few times, 4-5 throughout, I'd say. I loved how Matthau played serious in this. It's probably the only unfunny Matthau film I've seen, and this is definitely no comedy. This 70's film, with it's hard feel and vibe, is uniquely intriguing. Some nutter boards a bus, shoots down 8 people, one a police detective friend of cop, Matthau's. At the start this then alive detective was tailing some old guy, as I can remember, where obviously this has a bearing on his demise, otherwise the scene wouldn't be included in the film. What I loved, in this film, where about every exterior shot was shot in sunny weather, was the pairing of Matthau, and his new partner Dern, where he proves looks aren't everything, if you can act. Dern, playing tough here, who tends to infer violence if his suspects don't co-operate almost stole the show. One scene, has him getting into a confrontational scene with other cop, Lou Gossett Jnr, and he ever so smoothly backs down, provided a cool moment. We take the journey with Dern (who almost shared Matthau's dead partner's build, though the dead guy was better looking) and the gum chewing Matthau to find the cause of this slaughter. When questioning a pimp, as Matthau leaves, we hear a ho mumble "Pig". Matthau stops, looks around with angry intent. There's a couple of these unnerving moments from this actor's character, and it's not just in his work, though Dern came off better acting wise in this good solid crime flick, that will having you guessing why, where it's answer, will kind of thrown you into a one eighty, where you the viewer, have been really duped. We learn things about the dead cop, like how he was a bit of a creep, into things, other cops didn't know about, where some realizations start to surface. That's what makes a good crime thriller, though it doesn't have the logical of motives for the slaughter. Near it's end, if losing more faith as we do through the film to finding the killer and his reasons, our two hot shots resort to setting up this suspected killer in the same scenario as in the start. Another exhausting scene has Matthau and Dern climbing flights of steps to interrogate someone, where they stop mid flight to take a breather. Paul Koslo, again plays another loser character, who provides some info, who when questioned, has a tendency to smile all the time, and is not big on straight talk.

More of a documentary than an action film

[trudylyn · 6/10 · 4 May 2007]

Police procedurals have always been a staple of fiction, film and TV in the US and Europe. There are many stand outs in the genre and this isn't one of them. Having said that, I will say that this movie is full of surprises and interesting directing and cinematography. The technical assistance provided by the San Francisco police department seems to have been tremendous, particularly in the scenes demonstrating evidence collection and the then-unfamiliar SWAT team. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some of the stunts and extra work were performed by serving officers. The original novel took place in Sweden and only two items in the film reference that origin, one submachine gun and one Volvo. The title refers to an antique novelty record that has a bit part in the novel but doesn't appear anywhere in the movie, unless it was included in the Muzak that Matthau's detective seems addicted to throughout the movie. Predating Kojak by a few months, Matthau's character is chewing gum and sucking on suckers throughout the movie in an attempt to keep from smoking. He almost gives in at one point, but tosses the pack back on the table in the den. This movie is significant in that it features sex throughout. Prostitutes, live nude performers, gay go-go boys, rough trade and cross-dressers and a token lesbian in knee-length clown socks and sandals who works as a nurse and lost her partner to the crime, just as Matthau's partner died. His dead partner also used his girlfriend to enact murderous bondage scenes which he photographed as part of his crime fetish. Matthau's character apparently has a sexless marriage while his daughter is wandering around braless in thin sweaters and his son is hanging around with the sticky raincoat crowd in a nudie "burlesque" theater. One of the victims in the film is found dead in her apartment sans clothing and Dern's character trips and almost does a push up off her body, her face just inches from his. Matthau's character wanders through it all, chewing gum and viewing it all almost impassively, with only a few moments of verbal indignation and frustration. The scenery is magnificent and cars alone are worth the price of admission. The fashions are irritating, as they were at the time and it is simply amazing how few people use seat belts. The plot is thin, and the denouement is silly, but in the end you could do worse for a couple of hours.

Obscure film for a reason - garbled, dull, and miscast.

[heathblair · 2/10 · 29 August 2014]

Disappointing.

Not all of Hollywood's "gritty urban 70s thrillers" were classics - in fact most of them were fairly indistinguishable in look (drab) and feel (flat) from their TV show cousins, apart from much stronger language and violence. Indeed, The Laughing Policeman plays like a feature length episode of The Streets Of San Francisco, complete with older-cop/younger-cop buddy schtick but without the charm. I don't know if this movie "inspired" that old TV show or vice versa, and frankly I doubt anyone cares now.

It begins with a mass murder on a bus that's certainly harrowing and grimly intriguing. Enter Matthau's downbeat detective to solve the case. But then about ten minutes in, I noticed something. Matthau was irritating me. But that's impossible! I love Matthau! But almost immediately I saw that all of his character's relentless gum chewing and taciturn blankness were imposed characteristics rather than real character traits. I have a feeling Matthau didn't quite get a handle on the part and opted to coast. Consequently, we never quite see the character. We see Matthau working. He's a wonderful actor, but was simply miscast here. His lovely loping gate and demeanour suggest a humour that never actually materialises. It's just not there in the script for him. The effect is discombobulating and irritating (my advice: stick with The Taking Of Pelham 123 - the Matthau cop movie that got it right).

Bruce Dern also seems miscast. Dern, a good actor, is always at his best playing vaguely sinister mid-westerners whose toothy grins camouflage psychotic belligerence. He plays his character here as a mildly obnoxious borderline a-hole. That's a problem when we're supposed to care for him for two hours. Anti-heroes can make for fascinating movie characters, but Dern's cop is not bad-boy enough nor deep enough to be interesting. He's just... mildly obnoxious. Phfft.

As the movie grinds along, piling on every urban movie cliché you can think of, the plot is revealed to be not so much complex as contrived and silly. Apparently, the film was considered to be agreeably off-kilter by its contemporaneous critics, but now its internal rhythms feel just outright faulty. Worse, it addresses social issues (race, sexuality etc) in un-nuanced ways that would be unthinkable ten years later, or even, ironically enough, ten years earlier.

Multiple story arcs and sub-characters simply evaporate (it's typical of the film that Lou Gossett's potentially interesting character is not given a decent pay-off. The film might have been better remembered if he'd played Dern's part), a pitifully ersatz French Connection type car chase is thrown in just to be fashionable, and the whole thing has an ending that I confess to not understanding. I completely lost interest 15 minutes earlier so probably missed some "important" plot exposition. And I don't care.

I feel so sorry for director Stuart Rosenberg even at this distance in time. In 1967 he made Cool Hand Luke, a brilliant iconic film of the period. Six years later, stuff like this. What happened? Bad scripts, bad advice, bad luck? Life, I guess. It's odd that quite a few other directors who made fantastic debuts in the late 60s found themselves adrift in the 70s, their style perhaps more suited to an era that ended just before they could make the most of it.

Long-time San Franciscan looks at the city in this movie.

[emp · 30 July 2001]

I saw this movie today for the Xth time. As usual, I liked it a lot. So I looked this movie up on imdb.com, to see what they had to say, and was surprised at their Summary for this movie: `Dreary, Empty-Headed Crime Drama.'

I beg to differ. I have always loved this movie. It was released in 1973. It is a perfect picture of San Francisco in the mid-70's. I was there and I recognize everything in it--people, places, and attitudes. This is the pre-AIDS, pre-Yuppie, free-wheeling, getting-used-to-it San Francisco that I loved.

The director (Jack Sommersby) has taken the usual poetic license with the locations, so that the No. 14 Mission bus miraculously goes to Chinatown, and the Transamerica Pyramid is a good view from the Transbay Bus Terminal, but never mind. Any long-time San Franciscan will recognize the sights.

Further, and even better, this is a movie of subtleties--perhaps that is why the IMDB reviewer found it dreary. We are not hit in the face with expository material. The dialogue is not used to describe what can be shown. Early in the movie, the police are confronted with a bus of dead people. Getting on the bus, nobody says `It stinks in here.' Instead, one of the policemen says to the medical examiner, who is smoking a cigar, `Blow some of that smoke over here.' And, without comment, the ME does so. That is how we know it stinks in the bus.

As the policemen look closely at the dead people on the bus, they find that one of them is a policeman. It is, in fact, Matthau's partner. But they never say to each other (and therefore to us) that this victim is a policeman. They show it only in their reactions. Someone says, `My God! It's Hansen!' or words to that effect. `What is he doing on a bus?' and other dialogue let us know that this man is a policeman.

This is a happy change from the tedious obviousness of movies that are full of lines like, `You know, Jack, you are a happy-go-lucky person. Your face shows it.' Jack sits there like the lump he is, looking neither happy nor unhappy. We have to believe the speaker, because the acting isn't going to give us this information. A good director would eliminate this line, and get some happy-face acting from Jack.

It is good to see a movie directed by someone who thinks we are smart enough to get the point without being hit over the head with it. The advice usually given to beginning writers is also good for experienced directors: Don't tell us. Show us.

The laughing policeman is Bruce Dern--new to homicide investigations, and without subtleties. He laughs a lot. Matthau is the old-timer, who never laughs. He is also not a subtle person, but he is at least cautious. They are the beagle puppy and experienced retriever of the world of murder. They are oil and water, definitely not blending.

The plot is absurd, but it hardly matters. It is the chase. It is the location. It is the ambience (dreadful, overused word, but there it is; it is the right word) that counts in this movie.

Finding it on TV is hard these days. I found it recently on Black Starz TV. Fortunately for us all, Lou Gossett, Jr. is in it, so it will show up on channels catering to African Americans. Hunt for it. It's worth it.

IMDB.com uses the 10-star rating system. Following their lead, I give it 5 stars for plot, and 9 stars for faithful depiction of a time and place.

The Seamy Underbelly of a Great Western City

[romanorum1 · 6/10 · 10 July 2013]

A short and pudgy man, aware that he is being tailed, makes a telephone call at the San Francisco bus terminal late at night. He and about seven others board a bus just before its departure. The fat man's eyes are on a tall, dark-haired fellow. The latter, despite all of the empty seats, sits next to an attractive nurse. An auto speeds past the moving bus and comes to a stop at the next bus stop. Wearing a brown trench coat and carrying a piece of luggage, the car driver boards the bus just in time. We do not see his face. There seems to be a slight acknowledgment from Fatman as Trench Coat walks past him to the rear of the bus. After he sits down Trench Coat dons on a pair of black gloves, zippering them up. From his luggage he removes and assembles a submachine gun ("a greaser"). As he stands up and aims his weapon, Fatman gets up and exclaims, "Not yet!" Ignoring him, Trench Coat fires away at all of the passengers, including Fatman, and the bus driver, killing them all except one, who will die shortly after. The bus crashes to a stop in Chinatown. Trench Coat exits the vehicle calmly and escapes.

The police eventually arrive; SFPD Sgt. Jake Martin (Walter Mathau) is shocked when he discovers the body of the tall, dark-haired fellow. That was his partner Detective Dave Evans. But he was supposed to be on leave, unless he was on a special assignment. But was he? Fatman on the bus was Gus Niles. What was his relation to the killer? Why was Evans being set up? What about the other victims? We recognize that will be in a film that mostly deals with police work in tracking down each of the murdered passengers in order to find clues. Although many of the passengers have sordid pasts, most of the police work will lead to dead ends. Along the way we see emphasis placed on the hospital emergency room treatment of the wounded. Also, we will see a swat team in action and see what happens when street people are shaken up by the cops. Whether Haight/Ashbury or Laguna Street or Chinatown or the ghetto, the neighborhoods will tell us something about the people and their lifestyles. There will be prostitutes, petty criminals, hippies, and motorcycle gangs.

Main leads include Insp. Leo Larsen (Bruce Dern) and Insp. James Larrimore (Louis Gossett Jr.). Larsen will be Martin's new partner. Martin has made it perfectly clear early on that he has little use for Larsen. And the feeling is mutual. There will even be some tension between Larsen and Larrimore. The latter will disappear from the movie with three-quarters of an hour left. Despite lack of support from their immediate superior, Martin and Larsen will have to unravel it all out and confront the bad guy. The climax almost seems unnecessary, although Martin did say that the police have to spook him out. But were the killer's last actions really obligatory? See the movie and find out. Positives are good acting and nice on-location shooting!

Sjöwall & Wahlöo. a Perfect Alternative for the fans of, say, Ross MacDonald

[jgcorrea · 7/10 · 25 November 2019]

The Laughing Policeman is a mystery novel by Swedish writers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, originally published in Sweden in 1968 as Den skrattande polisen. It was the fourth of ten novels featuring Detective Martin Beck. If I may quote Mr. Roger Ebert, incidentally the most popular critic of all time: ¨The Laughing Policeman" is an awfully good police movie: taut, off-key, filled with laconic performances. It provides the special delight we get from gradually unraveling a complicated case. It's almost the kind of movie, indeed, to blast loose a detective-novel fan from Ross Macdonald. Instead of depending on sex and violence for its appeal (although it does contain them), it fascinates us with the way a criminal is finally tracked down.¨

Great Period Piece, Accurate 70s Police Procedural.

[MrSubway1 · 7/10 · 2 March 2008]

Yes this is a slow moving police investigation. After the initial massacre on a SF city bus, that does a great job of pulling the audience in, the action slows considerably.

The initial crime scene investigation is both authentic and pathetic. It is a glaring example of poor techniques that were employed by all police departments as recently as the 1980's. In this movie all the detectives were traipsing through the crime scene, smoking cigarettes and touching everything in sight.

Though the autopsy scene is long and the actors playing the corpses couldn't quite stay still, the actual autopsy was painfully authentic. Also authentic was the medical care given to the only living bus passenger. This was way before ET and ER and dare I say probably influenced both.

The characters and the themes the detectives deal with mirror the change and turmoil that defined the 1970's. The seedy city that has been romanticized recently is well represented in this film: promiscuous gays, pimps and prostitutes, kinky sex all out in the public.

Those things are the real strengths of the film. The murderer himself is a let down as is investigation that leads to him. A rich man kills a detective to prevent that detective from fingering him as the murderer of the rich man's wife. He kills everybody on the bus as cover. Oh please. If he is that ruthless and smart to do that, than he is not going to hold onto the gun, or get spooked by some detective who shows up with an old photo. The climactic scene on the bus, when the killer gets shot while trying to wipe out another detective on another city bus is so contrived as to be laughable (perhaps how they came up with the tile).

Overall, enjoyable as a period piece and character study.

Hey man ... Can you dig it?

[howdymax · 6/10 · 9 April 2005]

This movie starts out with a bang up massacre on a San Francisco bus. Blood and guts all over the place. With that kind of start, I had high hopes, even though this isn't normally my kind of movie. (What a bummer). It degenerates into some convoluted mess that wanders all over the screen. Pimps, Black Panthers, deranged Viet Nam vets, etc. No story, but it is somehow all tied up with an unsolved case involving a kinky ex-college student.

Walter Matthau plays the lead dick, haunted by the unsolved dead girls murder. Bruce Dern, in a standout role plays his cynical partner who always manages to tick everybody off. The rest of the cast is rounded out by folks who graduated from 2nd string support roles to guest appearances on TV crime dramas. Old pros like Val Avery, Paul Koslo, Anthony Zerbe.

San Francisco looks as good as ever, but this flick is really dated. Hari Krishnas, big Afros, big ties. (Can you dig it man?) This one aged somehow in a way that Dirty Harry never did.

If you can stand the wide lapels and the tight pants - the short shorts and the headbands - watch it. It's not (heavy), but I wouldn't call it lightweight either.

I wish more cop movies were like this.

[kelberto · 8/10 · 10 January 2002]

I happened upon this movie the other night by accident, and I loved it. I got hooked early on by the way the police in this film are portrayed as real human beings, with real foibles and weaknesses and prejudices. Definitely worth a viewing for anyone who knows anything about movies.

Bruce Dern...to the rescue!!!

[nomoons11 · 6/10 · 18 October 2010]

Every time I find a Matthau movie I've never seen I eagerly wait to find it on DVD or some way I can watch it. He usually carries the whole movie on his back but in this case, he was dead flat to say the least.

This one was slow as marbles on a flat board. I mean the whole setup was painfully slow and missing parts that could have made this more interesting. They didn't delve too much into the dead cop's background, but just enough for you to wanna know more. What Cathy Lee Crosby's role in this is a mystery to me. She meant nuthin to it except she may have been a lesbian, or not. Could have been the dead cop's kinky girlfriend, or not.

Bruce Dern turns this one into something watchable. He's usually the quirky smarta#* in most of his roles and he's no different in this one but his lines are far and away the best in this missed opportunity. It amazes me he never got bigger roles than he did. He's such a fun actor to watch. He was a gem in this one.

If you like being confused and bored- This is your movie......

[davendes · 3/10 · 15 January 2006]

Eight people are killed on a San Francisco bus by a greasegun-toting maniac, and one of the victims happens to be a cop who was supposed to be somewhere else. The combination of mass murder and losing one of their own sends the SFPD scrambling for quick answers, so they send out Bruce Dern and the dead policeman's former partner (Walter Matthau) to piece it all together.

OK, that covers the first 10-15 minutes of film, and it's the only part of this 2 hour fiasco that makes any bit of sense.

From this point on, the film turns into a jumbled, boring mess, filled with endless red herrings involving deviant sex, pimps, hookers, drug addicts and weirdos in general. No matter how closely you follow things and everything appears to lead nowhere, somehow the two detectives pull clues (and not very good ones at that) seemingly out of the air. This cyclical nonsense keeps rolling almost to the end, when finally, the policemen kinda/sorta/maybe think they have their man. In following the tone of all that's come before, the suspect conveniently makes a quick succession of unbelievably stupid moves to bring this impossible-to-follow disaster to a shoehorned-in conclusion.

As if all that's not bad enough, we get to see what would normally be a solid cast looking pretty weak. Matthau seems as utterly bored as the rest of us, Dern's usual maniacal glee gets twisted into goofiness, and everybody else ends up stuck being colorless backdrop.

I normally enjoy just about any gritty 70's police flick, but "The Laughing Policeman" doesn't even come close to making the grade. Please- Don't waste your time.

I was there

[chiefehrman · 9/10 · 6 March 2006]

I was in the navy at the time and I had just came back from Treasure Island and was coming through the bus terminal and I watched them make this movie. I was there for the when the opening scene where the Chinese guy was playing the pinball machine and ran to catch the bus. I also saw the SWAT scene be filmed. But on top of that it was a good movie and Bruce Dern was excellent. I would recommend this movie to anyone who just wants a good fun movie to watch. I did find it funny where the Mission St Bus finally ended up too. I loved San Francisco and still do to this day. Hollywood just don't make them like this anymore. It brings back good memories.

I wasn't laughing....or even smiling

[helpless_dancer · 7/10 · 10 February 2002]

I had trouble following what exactly was going on in this mixed up crime caper. Lots of cursing, screaming, and angst by the police as they go about tracking down a mad shooter in the streets of San Francisco was mostly what went on. I never figured out why the psycho went on his rampage, why the policeman laughed so much, or why I sat through the whole confusing picture.

Very disappointing to a fan of the book

[billposer · 2/10 · 24 January 2010]

This film is based on one of an excellent series of detective stories set in the authors' native Sweden. Much of the interest of the books is their setting. Although they have the usual virtues of good detective stories, they are also a commentary on modern life in Sweden. I was therefore eager to see this film when it came out.

Unfortunately, for inexplicable reasons the setting has been changed to San Francisco. This completely spoils it. Sometimes such a change is interesting or has no real effect, but in this case it destroys much of the interest of the film. We are left with a rather dull American police story.