It doesn’t happen often, but I relish the rare occasion when a movie leaves me buzzing like I’ve had too much coffee.  Well, significantly more coffee than usual, at least.  I drink a lot of coffee.

My most recent shot of cinematic adrenaline was courtesy of 1958’s The Lineup.  For an American movie made while the production code was still in effect, there is much here that is jarring, even by today’s standards.  As my wife put it, this is a film that actually feels dangerous.

That isn’t too surprising, as it was directed by Don Siegel, who had done Invasion of the Body Snatchers and would later helm Dirty Harry.  On the other hand, this is a feature film spin-off of a television show, which suggests it would be pretty lame.

To the best I can tell, the only carryover from the show is Warner Anderson, as the lead detective on an investigation into heroin being smuggled into San Francisco through unwitting carriers.  He is paired with Emile Meyer, who I had recently seen as a corrupt police captain in The Case Against Brooklyn.  I find it odd his performances were rather similar, regardless of which coast or which side of the law he’s on.

Admittedly, the police procedure part of this is functional, but not very engrossing.  Where the movie really shines is when it introduces to us a curious and fascinating pair of criminals played by Eli Wallach and Robert Keith.  Wallach is a psychopath on a hair trigger, who looks and acts uncannily like Joe Pesci.  He’s just there from Miami to collect baggies secreted in the items of various ship passengers and deliver these to “The Man” (Vaughan Taylor) at 4 pm.  Keith is some sort of mentor to Wallach, often correcting the hitman’s grammar and vocabulary.  He also has a morbid hobby of collecting people’s last words, and it appears Wallach has assisted in procuring many of these.

One would think Wallach would want to keep as low of a profile as possible, but he leaves a corpse at each of the first two stops.  Admittedly, the first guy tried to shake them down for a cut.  This is a sailor who had been transporting a porcelain horse and is wise enough to realize it contains horse.  I wonder why nobody felt inclined to a make a joke about trojan horses?

Things get really ugly when they have to deal with the final couriers, a single mom and her little girl.  The stash is no longer in the doll they unknowingly transported the smack in, and what has happened to it is very surprising, if more than a bit improbable. 

This film was largely shot on location in San Francisco, and it is a fascinating document of a city that has always looked beautiful on the screen.  What I especially appreciated is it has a considerable amount of footage shot on unremarkable streets, accidentally creating a snapshot of areas of the city that would have likely not have been documented otherwise.  The climax of the film begins in Sutro Baths, which burned down in 1966, and ends on a freeway that was under construction.  How that finale plays out has many shocking elements, including a surprising aspect of the roadway itself.

The most curious element of The Lineup is a bland title which, except for trying it back to the same-named television program, has little relevance to the plot. There is a scene with a lineup, but it isn’t exactly a high point of the picture. Outside of that, there is a great deal here to recommend it to noir fans (and even just movie fans in general).

Dir: Don Siegel

Starring Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Richard Jaeckel

Watched as part of Mill Creek’s blu-ray box set Film Noir Archive Volume 3: 1957-1960