COPS AND ROBBERS
US, 1973, 89 minutes, Colour.
Cliff Gorman, Joe Bologna, Dick Ward, Shepperd Strudwick, Ellen Holly.
Directed by Aram Avakian.
The title's tone indicates something - crime as a game, an affectionate nod at the game's protagonists. Michel Legrand's modish song reinforces this. But writer and director take us two ways: into the social pressures on a modern urban policeman and the important moral question - why not utilise police know-how for one's own crime? The film has some sharp observations here. The other direction is the fascination with the feelings of achievemement in committing a robbery and the consequent greater daring. ($10,000,000 in bonds). The film is part of the contemporary robbery and police trends. It revels in fantasy-crime but is rightly rueful about reality.
1. How enjoyable was this film as a robbery-caper film? As belonging to the police genre?
2. The importance of the colour photography, the New York locations, the ironic song of Cops and Robbers, the lyrics, the title and its tone, the game aspect? Or was it a realistic film?
3. What stance did the film take on the police? Sympathetic? Critical or satirical? The portrayal of the details of their work, the pros and cons of their workf the attitudes towards the police? The reality and success of police work? How typical were the two protagonists as policemen? The impact of the police work on their lives and personalities?
4. The importance of showing the two as city policemen? As victims of city pressures - the importance of the sequences of traffic, their homes, the sequences at the swimming-pools, their families, shopping.. all the pressures of modern city life on the man who has to keep order? The poor pay etc? What sharp observations did the film make on the social status of policemen?
5. How well did the film portray the attraction of money? Of leisure?
6. Why did the policemen become robbers? The significance of the pre-credits robbery and the impact in seeing a policeman do it? The effect on the policeman himself? Their discovery of the ethos of thieves? The gradual attraction of robbing? The benefits of the money. but the excitement of the enterprise itself, the consequent greater daring, the possibilities of stopping and yet going on? How did this contrast with the professional criminals like the Mafia as they were presented? The organizational crime? The dealing in big business? The contrast then with the Wall St. Run who manipulated the robbing of $2,000,000? What comment on criminals and thieves did the film thus make?
7. How did the planning of the crime effect the two personalities? How differently? Their aims and plans, using their police know-how. the use of disguise, the alertness in eluding followersf the building-up of informationf the techniques of entering the building as policemenf the ticker-tape day, the fears of being discoveredf yet the comparative ease of taking the bonds?
8. How serious did this become when there were threats to their lives? How did the threats balance against the daring and the exhilaration of robbery and keeping the money?
9. The importance of the chase-sequences and the scenes in Central Park? The Mafia v. two ordinary policemen? Organisation v. individual enterprise? Again, the running of the risk to life. the exhilaration of getting away?
10. How ironical is a film like this with a surface immoral fable, and yet making points about right and wrong? What attitudes towards right and wrong in the audience does this kind of film presuppose?
11. How well drawn as individuals were the two policemen? were their characters explored? Or only their interactions portrayed? In comparison with the other characters in the film? The shadowiness of the wives and family,, the portrayal of Patsy O'Neill and the other criminals, of the Wall St. criminalf of the police investigating, of the police on watch-duty in the Wall St. building?
12. How valuable are films like this? Do they succeed as entertainment, or do they have just a bit more which makes them inaccessible to the popular audience and thus specialist-films.
