The Laughing Policeman (film)

The Laughing Policeman
The Laughing Policeman
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Stuart Rosenberg
Screenplay by	Thomas Rickman
Based on	The Laughing Policeman; by Sjöwall and Wahlöö
Produced by	Stuart Rosenberg
Starring	Walter Matthau; Bruce Dern; Louis Gossett Jr.; Anthony Zerbe; Albert Paulsen
Cinematography	David M. Walsh
Edited by	Bob Wyman
Music by	Charles Fox
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	December 20, 1973;
Running time	112 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2 million
Box office	$1.7 million (rentals)

The Laughing Policeman (released in the UK as An Investigation of Murder) is a 1973 American neo-noir thriller film loosely based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. The setting of the story is transplanted from Stockholm to San Francisco. It is directed by Stuart Rosenberg and features Walter Matthau as Detective Jake Martin.

Plot

A busload of passengers, including off-duty police detective Dave Evans, is 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 Henry's wife Teresa two years earlier.

Evans was the partner of Detective Sergeant Jake Martin, a veteran but cynical member of the Homicide Detail who is 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 that enabled Camarero to cover up his wife's murder.

The sullen Jake and enthusiastic but impulsive Inspector 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 Lieutenant Steiner, they seek, find and smoke out Camarero, leading to a chase through the streets of San Francisco and a confrontation aboard another bus.

Cast

Walter Matthau as Sgt. Jake Martin (Martin Beck in the novel)
Bruce Dern as Insp. Leo Larsen (Gunvald Larsson in the novel)
Louis Gossett Jr. as Insp. James Larrimore
Anthony Zerbe as Lt. Nat Steiner
Albert Paulsen as Henry Camerero
Val Avery as Insp. John Pappas
Paul Koslo as Duane Haygood
Cathy Lee Crosby as Kay Butler
Joanna Cassidy as Monica
Clifton James as Maloney
Gregory Sierra as Ken Vickery
Matt Clark as Coroner

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 56%, based on reviews from 16 critics, with an average rating of 5.5/10.^[3]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times 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.^[4]

Variety praised the film, saying, "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."^[5]

According to Chris Petit of Time Out, "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."^[6]

Matthew Hartman of High-Def Digest wrote that "[the film] could have been a great and gritty 70s thriller, unfortunately, it's [sic] primary story doesn't live up to the potential of the opening scene".^[7]

Home video

The Laughing Policeman was released on Blu-ray on November 15, 2016.^{[citation needed]}

References

^ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p. 257.
^ Solomon p. 232. Please note figures are rentals, not total gross.
^ "The Laughing Policeman (1973)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
^ Roger Ebert (December 24, 1973). "The Laughing Policeman review".
^ "The Laughing Policeman". Variety. December 31, 1972.
^ "The Laughing Policeman". Time Out.
^ Hartman, Matthew. "The Laughing Policeman". High-Def Digest. Retrieved August 10, 2021.

External links

The Laughing Policeman at IMDb
The Laughing Policeman at the Swedish Film Institute Database

[1] Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p. 257.

[2] Solomon p. 232. Please note figures are rentals, not total gross.

[3] "The Laughing Policeman (1973)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved September 28, 2024.

[4] Roger Ebert (December 24, 1973). "The Laughing Policeman review".

[5] "The Laughing Policeman". Variety. December 31, 1972.

[6] "The Laughing Policeman". Time Out.

[7] Hartman, Matthew. "The Laughing Policeman". High-Def Digest. Retrieved August 10, 2021.

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