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| Year: 1958 Rating: ****1/2 |
Brazen and bizarre crime flick beginning with a police investigation of what turns out being heroin smuggled through antiques from a cruise ship before focusing on the criminals who collect the stuff: the first fifteen minutes a police procedural based on the television series its named after, also known as SAN FRANCISCO BEAT, which was a Bay Area DRAGNET from the early part of the sparse Eisenhower decade, in which this edgy theatrical adaptation came out in the hipper/jazzier crest of...
Eli Wallach, as the crazy, insecure yet sometimes charming lead thug named Dancer, shipped in from Florida with a tan intact, follows subtle "orders" and educationally-inclined etiquette lessons from elder partner Robert Keith...
Making for a unique and twisted partnership that could be called MY FAIR SOCIOPATH: both (along with "dipso" getaway driver Richard Jaeckel) going from the various oblivious "mules" to either take the hidden heroin, or their lives. Often both...
And director Don Siegel keeps the suspense on par with the snappy Noir dialog, and there's even some homoerotic stuff thrown in, way, way ahead of its time... THE LINEUP exceeds the very limited series it's loosely derived (there's even a Lineup scene in the beginning to attempt retrofitting the title). Thank Don for that... who fought to make this LINEUP his own way: where the peripheral cops are but a Greek Chorus for the central killers.
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Eli Wallach collecting in THE LINEUP
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Eli Wallach looks at The Man in THE LINEUP
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Warner Anderson and Emile Meyer as the cops of THE LINEUP
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"Right off the bat, it's good-looking white man's America, I dig it" James Ellroy, Commentary for The Lineup
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| Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP with Robert Bailey |
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| "Right off the bat, it's good-looking white man's America, I dig it" James Ellroy, Commentary The Lineup |
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Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP
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| Robert Keith and Richard Jaekal in THE LINEUP |
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| San Fran by United for THE LINEUP |
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| Eli Wallach and Robert Keith in THE LINEUP |
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| Eli Wallach with Robert Keith and Richard Jaekal in THE LINEUP |
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| Mary LaRoche and Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP |
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| Mary LaRoche and Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP |
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| Eli Wallach and Richard Jaekal in THE LINEUP |
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| Mary LaRoche, Cheryl Callaway and Robert Keith in THE LINEUP |
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| Eli Wallach with Mary LaRoche, Cheryl Callaway and Robert Keith in THE LINEUP |
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| William Leslie and Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP |
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| From THE LINEUP |
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| William Leslie in THE LINEUP |
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| Eli Wallach and Mary La Roche in THE LINEUP |
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| Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP |
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| Robert Keith in THE LINEUP |
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| Eli Wallach with Mary LaRoche and Cheryl Callaway in THE LINEUP |
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