Police as portrayed in old movies
Like all of you here, a lot of my movie watching consists of films made prior to the 1960's. What always puzzles me is the way the "coppers" act towards the general public. Most of them are rude,...
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I can imagine scenarios in which early Hollywood filmmakers clashes with minions of the law, so that might have affected the depiction of law-officers. OTOH, Hammett's THE THIN MAN depicts the cops in...
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Many of these old movies, of course, feature private detectives or amateur detectives as their leading characters. So, it's natural that the official police should be shown as stupider and more...
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As a balance, lots of classic movie policemen are depicted as the big-hearted softie who secretly looks out for the local street punks. Of course, it helps great deal if the cop in question happens to...
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hermanthegerm wrote:The cop in Little Caesar is a real jerk.And also more "affected" than any gangster character in that movie. I feel guilty picking on that actor, but that deliberate drawl he uses...
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I think the hard-working, decent flatfoot existed in film then, too; a great example is Chaney Sr's in WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS.
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So much of it really depends on who is the focus of the movie. If it's a film featuring an FBI hero, then all the local cops are thick-headed morons. If it's a cop hero, then the Feds are all...
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Interesting portrayal by Robert Ryan as Jim Wilson, the main character in On Dangerous Ground, who is burnt out, having endured too much nonsense as a city cop, and is starting to treat the customers...
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Wich2 wrote:I think the hard-working, decent flatfoot existed in film then, too; a great example is Chaney Sr's in WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS.Is there another While the City Sleeps besides the Dana Andrews...
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Even when it's guilty characters, there are certainly plenty of trigger-happy police in these movies (not that that's changed any too much) -I've only seen it once, but I think in BLACK DRAGONS Tom...
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>Is there another While the City Sleeps besides the Dana Andrews 1956 version?< For shame, Godzi!
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hermanthegerm wrote:The cop in Little Caesar is a real jerk.I've only seen it about 2 times, but during the part about Rico's charity work there's a montage of people reacting to it. When it gets to...
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What baffles me about cop portrayals in more recent movies is the cops' tendency to call suspects crude, insulting names: "dirtbag... scumbag... a**hole... creep... piece of +%+*..." etc etc. Do cops...
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The type folks who desire the kind of works cops do are often not pacifistically hearted in nature.
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He Walked By Night is an interesting movie, in that I think I read it in retrospect much differently than it would have read at the time. I think it's supposed to be read as a story of the resources...
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