STARSKY AND HUTCH
US, 1975, 75 minutes, Colour.
Paul Michael Glaser, David Soul, Michael Lerner, Richard Lynch, Richard Ward, Antonio Fargas.
Directed by Barry Shear.
Starsky and Hutch was the pilot in 1975 for the very successful television series which had four seasons. It made stars of Paul Michael Glaser (who went on to be a film director) and David Soul who went on to be a singer as well as a stage performer in his adopted England.
In 2004, an update of Starsky and Hutch was released with Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch. It was a reworking of the police series but playing it more for satire and a touch of parody with Ben Stiller being a much more obsessive Starsky and Owen Wilson a much more laid back and disreputable Hutch.
The film is a reminder of the popularity of the police buddy films in the 1970s, the partners, their friendships and clashes. Paul Michael Glaser is more ordinary as Starsky - though he has a great love for his car. David Soul complements him in his work - though it is hard to tell who is leader as each takes turns in pursuing their case. A very young Michael Lerner is the informer. Richard Lynch was a prominent villain at the period. Antonio Fargas continued in the series as Huggie Bear (with Snoop Dog performing this role in the 2004 version). Direction is by Barry Shear who made a number of telemovies and some small-budget films, especially the 1968 Wild in the Streets.
1. The pilot for the series seen in the retrospect of the success of the series? The popular ingredients, the police buddies, the police work, their sense of independence, clashes with authority? The pursuit of criminals, the chases and stake-outs? The buddies, the encounter with people, their handing of criminals and informers, of gangsters?
2. The city locations, the streets, the cars and chases, the precincts? The musical score?
3. The basic plot, the threat to Starsky and Hutch, their checking out informers, checking out with criminals on the street, their detection, finding out about the assassins, the reasons for the assassination? The gangster against whom they would testify - and his interview in the sauna and persuading them that they were being set up as was he? The inspector, the corruption and his link with the criminals?
4. The prologue, the young couple in the car, the assassins and their talking about John Wayne, shooting up the car? Their mistake? Their being recommissioned to kill Starsky and Hutch? Starsky and Hutch and their shrewdness, setting up the meeting, deceiving the killers, going into the apartment, the shoot-out?
5. The police chief, his reading the letter of the law to them? The higher authorities - and the irony that they were in league? The shrewdness in detecting that Rowley had made an interior call on his release from the cell?
6. Rowley, informant, the phone calls, Starsky and Hutch getting the people in the bar to write down the information? Putting Rowley in jail, his getting out, his ringing the assassins, his being the go-between?
7. The incidental comedy, the buddies, their mistakes, the stake-out in the rain, at the sauna, at the gym, their cars?
8. The series setting up the basic ingredients, including Huggie Bear and the meeting in the porn cinema to get information from him, for the development of the series?
