Poor Stacy Harris, the stalwart B-movie and television actor, tries to hold this shoestring-budgeted film together while being surrounded by a production full of amateurs. Few films are more forgotten or unknown than this one. Perhaps to give a jolt to realism, a few “actors” are actual police officers. The police captain, Louis Sirgo, is for real and with no acting experience. He holds his own pretty well but the family scenes are shaky, mostly due to poor directing and a cliched script. Their first family scene awkwardly plays out similar to those teenage etiquette films of the era.
The film opens on a sleazy section of Bourbon Street as an “exotic” dancer is called into the lounge owner’s office. He is angry at all the needle marks on her arm and arranges to have her stowed away in a motel to detox. It is a short night for her. Finding the murderer is a job for professionals. Detective Harris and Captain Sirgo will have to do. Sirgo, being the proper spouse and parent, dutifully calls home frequently to apologize for the constant developments in the case and postpone the family fishing trip. It does not get any more real than that.
To continue the film’s awkwardness, the motel manager, helping describe a visitor that night, with eyes looking up in deep thought, says he can still hear those heels clicking. Cowboy boots...pant legs rolled down over them. That is some kind of hearing. He should be a spy or something. They find cowboy boots but attached to the wrong man.
We are taken to another nightclub where Dixieland music is playing. The people around the bar apparently are not aware of this because most are tapping their fingers on the bar counter to the rhythm from a different club. In the same scene, one camera may have a sharp focus on Harris, while the actor he is interrogating has a soft focus. Looking like old stock footage. Most interior scenes are covered by a single area microphone.
The lounge owner, known affectionately as “The Boss,” is fronting his heroin business as a tobacco exporter. Destroying hundreds of clients, one way or the other. By now, we discover the late cow-booted killer was simply a hired gun. Harris and Sirgo, as well-known local cops, go “undercover” as dishonest sailors. Everyone recognizes them immediately. Even Clark Kent wore spectacles and we know how effective those were. But thanks to their training, they manage to turn the tables on the thugs. They eventually tail the boss to his warehouse where the policemen arrest him after bullets are exchanged. No shots fired...they just exchanged bullets. This movie makes a good case for never creating “reality” television shows.
Note: This film is based on the 1955 television series "N.O.P.D." starring Stacy Harris. The "documentary" movie takes the sleaze level to a new low. One of only two films produced by Eric Sayers, it probably accounts for the awful presentation. His credentials are as thin as the cinematography work by Willis Winford or the direction by John Sledge.
The film opens on a sleazy section of Bourbon Street as an “exotic” dancer is called into the lounge owner’s office. He is angry at all the needle marks on her arm and arranges to have her stowed away in a motel to detox. It is a short night for her. Finding the murderer is a job for professionals. Detective Harris and Captain Sirgo will have to do. Sirgo, being the proper spouse and parent, dutifully calls home frequently to apologize for the constant developments in the case and postpone the family fishing trip. It does not get any more real than that.
To continue the film’s awkwardness, the motel manager, helping describe a visitor that night, with eyes looking up in deep thought, says he can still hear those heels clicking. Cowboy boots...pant legs rolled down over them. That is some kind of hearing. He should be a spy or something. They find cowboy boots but attached to the wrong man.
We are taken to another nightclub where Dixieland music is playing. The people around the bar apparently are not aware of this because most are tapping their fingers on the bar counter to the rhythm from a different club. In the same scene, one camera may have a sharp focus on Harris, while the actor he is interrogating has a soft focus. Looking like old stock footage. Most interior scenes are covered by a single area microphone.
The lounge owner, known affectionately as “The Boss,” is fronting his heroin business as a tobacco exporter. Destroying hundreds of clients, one way or the other. By now, we discover the late cow-booted killer was simply a hired gun. Harris and Sirgo, as well-known local cops, go “undercover” as dishonest sailors. Everyone recognizes them immediately. Even Clark Kent wore spectacles and we know how effective those were. But thanks to their training, they manage to turn the tables on the thugs. They eventually tail the boss to his warehouse where the policemen arrest him after bullets are exchanged. No shots fired...they just exchanged bullets. This movie makes a good case for never creating “reality” television shows.
Note: This film is based on the 1955 television series "N.O.P.D." starring Stacy Harris. The "documentary" movie takes the sleaze level to a new low. One of only two films produced by Eric Sayers, it probably accounts for the awful presentation. His credentials are as thin as the cinematography work by Willis Winford or the direction by John Sledge.
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