The Laughing Policeman (1973)

Director:

Stuart Rosenberg

Writers:

Per Wahlöö (novel) &
Maj Sjöwall (novel) ...

Release Date:

23 January 1974 (Sweden)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

This movie is so real it makes every other movie in this town look like a movie.

Plot:

In San Francisco, one victim in a mass murder is a police detective. His partner and a new partner investigate in the city's seamy side.

Plot Keywords:

Killer | Bus | Detective | Massacre | Murder

Cast

Walter Matthau	...	Sgt. Jake Martin SFPD
Bruce Dern	...	Insp. Leo Larsen SFPD
Louis Gossett Jr.	...	Insp. James Larrimore SFPD (as Lou Gossett)
Albert Paulsen	...	Henry Camerero
Anthony Zerbe	...	Lt. Nat Steiner SFPD
Val Avery	...	Insp. John Pappas SFPD
Cathy Lee Crosby	...	Kay Butler
Mario Gallo	...	Bobby Mow, Snitch
Joanna Cassidy	...	Monica, Beth's Roomate
Shirley Ballard	...	Grace Martin
William Hansen	...	Mr. Schwermer, Bus Vicitm
Jonas Wolfe	...	Det. Mike Collins
Paul Koslo	...	Duane Haygood, Drug Pusher
Louis Guss	...	Gus Niles / Andrew Medford - Bus Victim
Frances Lee McCain	...	Prostitute (as Lee McCain)

Also Known As:

An Investigation of Murder (UK)

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:K-18 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | USA:R | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

When Larsen (Bruce Dern) and Martin (Walter Matthau) are on the way to pick up explosives from the Hell's Angels, the tune "Big Noise From Winnetka" plays in the background. Dern went to New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The Anthony Zerbe character is Lieutenant "Styner" according to his desk nameplate, but "Steiner" in the closing credits.

Quotes:

Insp. James Larrimore SFPD: [to pimp he has just pushed to the floor] What ever you are reaching for better be a sandwich coz you're gonna have to eat it!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hot Times (1974)

Soundtrack:

Serenade in Blue

Shooting Up A Bus

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.