CONFESSIONS OF A LADY COP

US, 1980, 100 minutes, Colour.
Karen Black, Don Murray, Patricia Crowley.
Directed by Lee H. Katzin.

More or less an it sounds. It obviously echoes such television series as Policewoman. In fact, it seems something like a pilot for a television series. The situations of the film are fairly conventional - especially in police work as well as the behind the scenes frustrations and pressures for policemen and women. The film is carried by the strength of Karen Black's personality and performance. There is good support from Don Murray and an interesting cameo by Patricia Crowley as his strong, long-suffering wife. Direction is by Lee H. Katzin, director of many telemovies as well as features like The Salzburg Connection, Whatever Happened To Aunt Alice. Routine material, although highlighting the difficulties of being a law enforcement person.

1. The entertainment value of the pictures of the police at work. their private lives? The conventions of the cinema tradition of police stories? The popularity of the police on television during the seventies? The emphasis on policewomen? This film within this context? Its overall quality - better, average?

2. The conventions of the police story: the establishing of life at the precinct, seeing the police in action, the pressures and the eruptions of violence? Frustrations? The ugly and violent side of the criminal world? The courts? Personal pressures, career, inability to cope with difficult situations - the temptation to suicide? Tangled personal relationships? The need for achievement? The demands made on emotions and the possibility of fulfilment? How well did the film illustrate these various conventions?

3. The effectiveness of the film as telemovie? The tension and action? Commercial breaks? Californian setting? Special effects for action sequences?

4. The plausibility of the plot: how real did it seem, how contrived? Evelyn as a personality? Her relationship with Jack, with the other members of the team? Seeing her in action? Her investigations, her skill in arrests, detection? Her need for fulfilment in her work, to get the breaks, to achieve? The contrast with her frustrations her friendship with the policewoman who killed herself and the discovery of the body? Her own desperation? Jack and Gloria? Her being rescued? Her involvement in the case and detection? The arrest and the interrogation and getting the lead on the gun? The violent confrontation with guns? no contrast with her friendship with the children, their reliance on her? The teacher and his courting her? Her future? Sufficient for a portrait of a busy policewoman?

6. The sub-plot with Jack and Gloria? Evelyn and her friendship with Jack, the affair? His weakness in not telling his wife? Gloria and her strong stand and Jack's reaction? The effect on Evelyn? the attempted suicide, the ringing of Gloria? Gloria’s intervention? Jack's rising to the occasion to keep Evelyn alive? Future relationships between the three?

7. The children and the emotional aspects of the film? Evelyn breaking the news of their parents' death, helping them in the institute? The teacher and his criticisms of her? Her going to see the children? The bonds with the teacher and the possibility of her giving up the police to teach?

8. The members of the police force? various styles of personality, good friendship, jokes, tensions? Seeing them in action? the initial arrests at the club, trying to detect bosses behind rackets? The siege of the man in the house and the ruse about getting the pets out? The final gun-down?

9. The criminal world of Los Angeles? sufficiently suggested for the purposes of the film? Audience familiarity with these characters from other films?

10. The significance of the title - the point of confessions? A portrait of a policewoman? The policewoman as symbolizing people trying to cope with life, work, challenges, frustrations? Society and its attitude towards the police? expecting the police to protect, to confront ugly situations so that the public does not have to be involved? How fair is this towards the police? The help that the police get to cope with their work and personal problems?