''The Laughing Policeman'' (released in the UK as ''An Investigation of Murder'') is a 1973 American

neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...

thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...

film loosely based on the 1968 novel of the same name by

Maj Sjöwall Maj Sjöwall (; 25 September 1935 – 29 April 2020) was a Swedish author and translator. She is best known for her books about police detective Martin Beck. She wrote the books in collaborative work with her partner Per Wahlöö. Biograph ...

and

Per Wahlöö Per Fredrik Wahlöö (5 August 1926 – 22 June 1975) – in English translations often identified as Peter Wahloo – was a Swedish author. He is perhaps best known for the collaborative work with his partner Maj Sjöwall on a series of ten nov ...

. The setting of the story is transplanted from

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

. It was directed by

Stuart Rosenberg Stuart Rosenberg (August 11, 1927 – March 15, 2007) was an American film and television director whose motion pictures include ''Cool Hand Luke'' (1967), ''Voyage of the Damned'' (1976), '' The Amityville Horror'' (1979), and ''The Pope of Gree ...

and features

Walter Matthau Walter Matthau (; born Walter John Matthow; October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American actor, comedian and film director. He is best known for his film roles in '' A Face in the Crowd'' (1957), '' King Creole'' (1958) and as a coach of a ...

as Detective Jake Martin.

Plot

A busload of passengers, including off-duty police detective Dave Evans, are gunned down and killed. Evans, on his own time, has been following a man named Gus Niles in search of information linking businessman Henry Camarero to the murder of his wife, Teresa, two years earlier. Evans was the partner of Detective Sergeant Jake Martin, a veteran but cynical member of the Homicide Detail working the bus massacre investigation. Jake originally investigated the Teresa Camarero case and has been obsessed with his failure to "make" Camarero for the murder. Jake returns to it after many dead-end leads (including a disastrous confrontation with a deranged amputee who takes hostages at gunpoint) in the bus investigation. Niles was killed on the bus as well, and it was Niles who provided the

alibi An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...

that enabled Camarero to cover up his wife's murder. The sullen Jake and enthusiastic but impulsive

Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...

Leo Larsen are paired to interview suspects. Jake shuts out Larsen from his deductions, while Larsen, despite a loose-on-the-rules and brutal side, tries to understand and gain the confidence of his new partner. Defying the orders of their police superior Lt. Steiner, they seek, find and then smoke out Camarero, leading to a chase through the streets of San Francisco and a confrontation aboard another bus.

Cast

as Sgt. Jake Martin (

Martin Beck Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective and the main character in the ten novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, collectively titled ''The Story of a Crime''. Frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories, all have been ada ...

in the novel) *

Bruce Dern Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has often played supporting villainous characters of unstable natures. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver ...

as Insp. Leo Larsen (

Gunvald Larsson Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective and the main character in the ten novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, collectively titled ''The Story of a Crime''. Frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories, all have been adapte ...

in the novel) * Louis Gossett Jr. as Insp. James Larrimore *

Anthony Zerbe Anthony Jared Zerbe (born May 20, 1936) is an American actor. His notable film roles include the post-apocalyptic cult leader Matthias in ''The Omega Man'', a 1971 film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, '' I Am Legend''; as an Irish C ...

as Lt. Nat Steiner *

Albert Paulsen Albert Paulsen (born Albert Paulson; 13 December 1925 in Guayaquil, Ecuador – 25 April 2004 in Los Angeles, California) was an Ecuadorian-American actor who appeared in many American television series beginning in the 1960s, playing chara ...

as Henry Camerero *

Val Avery Val may refer to: Val-a Film * ''Val'' (film), an American documentary about Val Kilmer, directed by Leo Scott and Ting Poo Military equipment * Aichi D3A, a Japanese World War II dive bomber codenamed "Val" by the Allies * AS Val, a So ...

as Insp. John Pappas *

Paul Koslo Paul Koslo (born Manfred Koslowski; June 27, 1944 – January 9, 2019) was a German-born Canadian actor. Career Koslo started his career in such 1970s films as '' Nam's Angels'' a.k.a. ''The Losers'', '' Vanishing Point'' and ''The Stone Ki ...

as Duane Haygood *

Cathy Lee Crosby Cathy Lee Crosby (born December 2, 1944) is an American actress and former professional tennis player. She achieved TV and film success in the 1980s and was a co-host of the television series ''That's Incredible!'' Early life Crosby was born i ...

as Kay Butler *

Joanna Cassidy Joanna Cassidy (born Joanna Virginia Caskey, August 2, 1945 Brady, James"In Step With: Joanna Cassidy" ''Miami Herald'', November 25, 1990. Accessed March 14, 2022, via Newspapers.com. "Born: Aug.2, 1944, in Camden, N.J.") is an American actress. ...

as Monica *

Clifton James George Clifton James (May 29, 1920 – April 15, 2017) was an American actor known for roles as a prison floorwalker in ''Cool Hand Luke'' (1967), Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond films '' Live and Let Die'' (19 ...

as Maloney *

Gregory Sierra Gregory Joseph Sierra (January 25, 1937 – January 4, 2021) was an American actor known for his roles as Detective Sergeant Chano Amengual on ''Barney Miller'', Julio Fuentes, the Puerto Rican neighbor of Fred G. Sanford on ''Sanford and Son'' ...

as Ken Vickery *

Matt Clark Matthew Clark is a United Kingdom-based drinks distributor. Matthew or Matt Clark may also refer to: *Mat Clark (born 1990), Canadian ice hockey defenceman *Matt Clark (actor) (born 1936), American actor and director *Matt Clark (baseball) (born 19 ...

as Coroner

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

the film has a score of 57% based on reviews from 14 critics, with an average rating of 5.5/10.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicago ...

'' said,

''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... The direction is by Stuart Rosenberg, and marks a comeback of sorts... With ''The Laughing Policeman'', he takes a labyrinthine plot and leads us through it at a gallop; he respects our intelligence and doesn't bother to throw in a lot of scenes where everything is explained. All the pieces in the puzzle do fit together, you realize after the movie is over, and part of the fun is assembling them yourself. And there are a couple of scenes that are really stunning, like the bus shooting, and an emergency room operation, and scenes where the partners try to shake up street people to get a lead out of them. Police movies so often depend on sheer escapist action that it's fun to find a good one.

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' praised the film saying that "After an extremely overdone prolog of violent mass murder on a bus, ''The Laughing Policeman'' becomes a handsomely made manhunt actioner, starring Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern in excellent performances as two San Francisco detectives". According to Chris Petit of ''

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an engine ...

'', "By the end, complete with car chase and split-second shooting, the film has become indistinguishable from all those movies it's trying so hard to disown". ''The Laughing Policeman'' was released on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

on November 15, 2016. Matthew Hartman of High-Def Digest, who reviewed it, wrote "

he film He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

could have been a great and gritty 70s thriller, unfortunately, it's primary story doesn't live up to the potential of the opening scene".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Laughing Policeman, The Films directed by Stuart Rosenberg Martin Beck films 20th Century Fox films 1970s thriller films American police detective films Films scored by Charles Fox Films set in San Francisco Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Films shot in San Francisco Films based on mystery novels 1970s police procedural films Films based on Swedish novels 1970s English-language films 1970s American films 1970s Swedish films

Plot

Cast

Reception

See also

References

External links