Cops and Robbers (1973 film)

Last updated
Cops and Robbers
Cops and robbers (film poster).jpg
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by Aram Avakian
Written by Donald E. Westlake
Produced by Elliott Kastner
George Pappas
Starring Cliff Gorman
Joseph Bologna
CinematographyDavid L. Quaid
Edited by Barry Malkin
Music by Michel Legrand
Distributed by United Artists
Release dates
August 15, 1973 (New York City)
August 17, 1973 (U.S. wide)
February 25, 1974 (Sweden)
March 29, 1974 (Finland)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Cops and Robbers is a 1973 crime comedy film directed by Aram Avakian with an original screenplay by Donald E. Westlake which Westlake subsequently expanded into a novel. The film stars Cliff Gorman as Tom and Joseph Bologna as Joe.

Contents

Plot

“Cops and Robbers” stars Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna as two New York City cops who turn to crime to fund an early retirement for each. They are neighbors and they are living an OK suburban life with homes, a swimming pool and families in a high-density community and they commute to work together. Both are working-class and looking for more money for a better lifestyle.

Well, one cop, Joseph Bologna as “Joe,” robs a liquor store while in uniform and literally walks away into the night. After that, he tells his friend and neighbor “Tom,” played by Cliff Gorman, and both ultimately realize that pulling off a big heist would get them out of a dangerous job and, since they are NYPD officers, it gives them a big advantage in whatever crime they choose to accomplish. So, what do they do? They go to the mob!

Gorman goes to a mobster’s house and asks what he would pay $2 million for them to steal. The gangster does some verbal jousting and finally tells Gorman about bearer bonds and that he would need to steal $10 million worth of them to earn the $2 million.

It’s how they accomplish the heist and get the payoff that offers the clever details that make the movie. Here are some of “Cops and Robbers’” neat twists:

• First, after Gorman, who is in disguise, meets with the mobster, some of the gang try to follow him to find out his true identity. As they follow him up an escalator from the subway, a uniformed cop (Bologna) holds up the line after Gorman has passed. Of course, the gangsters don’t realize at that moment that the two are together. By the time they get to the street, Gorman has disappeared, as has Bologna.

• After deciding to rob a Wall Street brokerage during a tickertape parade for astronauts just back from space (the film is set in the early 1970s), they steal the bearer bonds, but then rip them up and throw them out a window as part of the parade celebration of a cascade of paper coming out of skyscraper windows. This idea is the key component to the whole robbery. They didn’t have to worry about anyone finding the stolen bonds: The bonds no longer exist and the crime is reported by all the media that $12 million was stolen. It’s the irony of the total reported, because the brokerage house executive robbed by the duo snagged $2 million for himself with no one the wiser, but the two crooked cops.

• For transportation, the duo uses patrol units … “borrowed” and then returned unnoticed from a police garage. Of course, both have uniforms (although Gorman is a plain-clothes detective) and fit both to their advantage, especially at the end when they make the pickup of the $2 million in Central Park in an area where only bicycles were allowed … but so were police cars.

In the end, they survive the mob’s trap in the park and get away with the $2 million, while the mobster is killed because he fouled up and lost the money to the two cops.

Cast

Additional information

This film was also released under the following titles:

Reception

Roger Greenspun wrote a favorable review of the film for the New York Times. [1]

Soundtrack

The score was composed and conducted by Michel Legrand. The soundtrack was released exclusively on compact disc in August 2009.

Track List:

See also

Related Research Articles

The caper story is a subgenre of crime fiction. The typical caper story involves one or more crimes perpetrated by the main characters in full view of the reader. The actions of police or detectives attempting to prevent or solve the crimes may also be chronicled, but are not the main focus of the story.

The heist film or caper film is a subgenre of crime films and the caper story, focused on the planning, execution, and aftermath of a significant robbery.

<i>Heist</i> (2001 film) 2001 film by David Mamet

Heist is a 2001 American heist film written and directed by David Mamet and starring Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito and Delroy Lindo, with Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay and Sam Rockwell in supporting roles.

<i>Quick Change</i> 1990 film by Bill Murray, Howard Franklin

Quick Change is a 1990 American crime comedy film directed by Bill Murray and Howard Franklin and written by Franklin. Based on the novel of the same name by Jay Cronley, the film stars Murray, Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, and Jason Robards. Quick Change follows three people on an elaborate bank robbery and their subsequent escape.

The Lufthansa heist was a robbery which took place at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated US$5.875 million was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil at the time.

<i>Money Train</i> 1995 action comedy film by Joseph Ruben

Money Train is a 1995 American action comedy film directed by Joseph Ruben from the screenplay by Doug Richardson and David Loughery. It stars Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes and Jennifer Lopez, with Robert Blake and Chris Cooper in supporting roles.

<i>Dollars</i> (film) 1971 film by Richard Brooks

$, also known as Dollar$, Dollars or $ (Dollars), and in the UK as The Heist, is a 1971 American heist comedy film starring Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn, written and directed by Richard Brooks and produced by M.J. Frankovich. The supporting cast includes Gert Fröbe, Robert Webber and Scott Brady. The film is about a bank security consultant (Beatty) who develops a scheme with a prostitute, Dawn Divine (Hawn), to steal several criminals' money from a bank vault.

<i>The Hot Rock</i> (film) 1972 film by Peter Yates

The Hot Rock is a 1972 American crime comedy-drama film directed by Peter Yates from a screenplay by William Goldman, based on Donald E. Westlake's novel of the same name, which introduced his long-running John Dortmunder character. The film stars Robert Redford, George Segal, Ron Leibman, Paul Sand, Moses Gunn and Zero Mostel. It was released in the UK with the alternative title How to Steal a Diamond in Four Uneasy Lessons.

<i>Bank Shot</i> 1974 film by Gower Champion

Bank Shot is a 1974 heist film directed by Gower Champion and written by Wendell Mayes. It was loosely based upon Donald E. Westlake's 1972 novel of the same name, which was the second book of his "Dortmunder" series. The film stars George C. Scott, Joanna Cassidy, Sorrell Booke, and G. Wood.

<i>The Hunter</i> (Stark novel) Novel by Richard Stark (pseudonym of Donald E. Westlake)

The Hunter (1962) is a crime thriller novel by American writer Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark. It is the first of the novels featuring career criminal Parker.

<i>The New Centurions</i> 1972 American film by Richard Fleischer

The New Centurions is a 1972 American Panavision neo-noir action crime film based on the 1971 novel of the same name by author and policeman Joseph Wambaugh.

<i>The Burglars</i> 1971 film by Henri Verneuil

Le Casse is a 1971 French-Italian neo noir crime film directed by director Henri Verneuil and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Omar Sharif. It is based on the 1953 novel by David Goodis and revolves around a team of four burglars chased by a corrupt policeman in Athens. It's a remake of the 1957 film The Burglar with Jayne Mansfield.

Cops and Robbers may refer to:

Lawrence DeVol was an American criminal, bank robber, prison escapee and Depression-era outlaw. He was connected to several Midwestern gangs during the 1920s and 1930s, most often with the Barker-Alvin Karpis and Holden-Keating Gangs, and was also a former partner of Harvey Bailey early in his criminal career. DeVol is known to have killed at least eleven people during his criminal career, including six law enforcement officers.

<i>The Town</i> (2010 film) 2010 American crime drama film directed by Ben Affleck

The Town is a 2010 American crime thriller film co-written, directed by, and starring Ben Affleck, adapted from Chuck Hogan's 2004 novel Prince of Thieves. It also stars Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Titus Welliver, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Slaine, and follows a Boston bank robber who begins to develop romantic feelings for a victim of one of his previous robberies, while he and his crew set out to get one final score by robbing Fenway Park.

Joseph Jerome "Jerry" Scalise is a Chicago mobster and a high-ranking member of the Chicago Outfit criminal organization. He is most known for stealing the Marlborough diamond in London in 1980, and also for serving as a technical advisor on the 2009 film Public Enemies.

<i>The Art of the Steal</i> (2013 film) 2013 Canadian film

The Art of the Steal is a 2013 Canadian comedy film written and directed by Jonathan Sobol. It stars Kurt Russell, Jay Baruchel, Chris Diamantopoulos, Matt Dillon and Katheryn Winnick. It was shown at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

<i>Cool Breeze</i> (film) 1972 film

Cool Breeze is a 1972 American blaxploitation heist film directed and co-written by Barry Pollack and starring Thalmus Rasulala. It was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film is loosely based on W. R. Burnett's 1949 novel The Asphalt Jungle. It is the fourth film adaptation of the novel, after The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Badlanders (1958) and Cairo (1963). The film was released with the tagline: "He hit the Man for $3 million. Right where it hurts. In the diamonds. And baby, that's cold."

Daniel Simone is an American author, who specialized in writing about sensational crimes in collaboration with one of the perpetrators or investigators of the actual event.

<i>Violent Panic: The Big Crash</i> 1976 Japanese film

Violent Panic: The Big Crash, also known as Great Collision, is a 1976 Japanese heist film directed by Kinji Fukasaku.

References

  1. Greenspun, Roger (August 16, 1973). "Cops and Robbers (1973): Police Team Engineers Caper in 'Cops and Robbers'". The New York Times . If anybody had told me even a week ago about a funny, exciting, semi-plausible, exceptionally intelligent caper movie, I would not have believed him. "Cops and Robbers," despite its title, and despite the slightly dumb-dumb ad campaign that is introducing it, is all those good things and more. It is uncommonly well acted. And it is the first movie in a long time to understand, rather than merely to exploit, its New York City locales.[ dead link ]