Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
Not watching the Detectives?
Where are the Boys in Blue when you need em ?
Looking for something other than mediocre talent contests or re-runs of “Mock the Weak” to watch on a Saturday night we found on I player the French film "36". It’s a cop film (possibly a un flic flick?) with Gérard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil in it. It’s a classic good cop vs. bad cop drama (well goodish cop vs. baddish cop) anyway it was entertaining if a little barking.
Anyway, it got me thinking Why are there no British cop films?
Some of the classics of American cinema feature police officers as the hero/main character and so do French, Hong Kong and Japanese films. But in the UK it’s all villains, blaggers, tasty geezers etc. There are the odd exceptions but “the Blue lamp” was made before most people round here were born (1950) and the Sweeney movies were really TV spin offs. Which only leaves the odd "carry on" film and the dreadful little and large production that forms the title of this post. The only recent British police film is “Hot Fuzz” and that too was a comedy which sort of disappeared into fantasy at the end.
Look at the career of arguably the UK’s greatest film star Michael Caine; has he ever played a policeman? He’s played army officers, villains, spies, lawyers, doctors and even a butcher why not a South London policeman chief? As for most other British actors they’d probably have to go to America to get a whiff of a truncheon (or should that be night stick) on the big screen.
It is odd we have loads of TV police shows although majority are probably detective dramas with the exception of a Police blue collar soap like “the Bill”.
I have suspicion it’s bound up in class and ideology somehow?
So are there any good UK police films I've missed and any ideas why there’s not more?
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Hot Fuzz?
maybe? But yeah, we tend to do Police tv series/multi parters - eg Prime Suspect, Cracker better and more often then we do films.
What about
Pigging awful. They had to devote their life to Jesus for forgiveness
i did mention
both Hot fuzz and boys in blue in my post * goes back to writing pithy short pun based posts :( *
you did- so sorry.
I've developed a terrible habit of only reading the beginning and ending of things. What became of my attention spa - oh look, a squirrel!
don't mention
squirrels - it's very unadvisable
Not sure it was released
on the Silver screen but Jake Arnotts 'He kills coppers' was certainly a good tv movie adaptation of a novel chronicling the ills of our boys in blue and was also a great account of life in 60's Britain.
wasn't it still from the villians
point of view ? you rarely see a British Harry Callaghan or police procedural on the big screen.
It's a good point
although the private dick has been a more fertile genre than the public dick - even in American cinema. Apart from Clint's Dirty Harry character I can't really think of too many other iconic screen cops.
Some of the Cracker episodes would have been cracking movies given the right director. But again - trick cyclist rather than dick led
bullet
lethal weapon, 48 hrs, heat, bad leautenant, die hard!, copland, departed, 7even,point break, the colours,training days, bronx fort apache, the choirsboys, fargo, smokey and the bandit.....
update: oh and the French Connection
a good list
of films - some of them good, some bad, some indifferent - none featuring an iconic cop - with the possible exception of Popeye Doyle
I was really focusing on Icons
more that the police rather than villains where the "heroes" having said that if Steve McQueen can't make it as an Icon (a much devalued word) well nobody ever can ;)
British Police Films
I can't think of too many films directly about British policemen, but Hell Is A City starring the great Stanley Baker is a good one.
How about
Sean Connery's "The Offence"?
I think a lot has to do with the state of the British Film Industry from the 70's onwards. TV has always had the jump on Cinema in this country in terms of pushing social realism / the artistic envelope, something US tv couldn't / wouldn't do.
Think of Prime Suspect, The Sweeney, The Professionals - all were considered a bit dangerous in their day, plus you've got Frost, Morse, Midsomer Murders, Hearbeat (shudder), Taggart - all quite popular, but hardly procedural. How could Cinema compete with that?
Politically the Police weren't exactly flavour of the decade(s) were they? Let's see - The Ripper Murders / Soho Corruption / Notting Hill riots / the SPG and Blair Peach / Toxteth / The Miners Dispute - an extension of the Big Brother state and the impending collapse of civilisation.
We've always been more interested in the crime than the forces behind justice (Agatha Christie et al) haven't we?
For the US it took "Hill Street Blues" and "Barney Miller" didn't it?
Dunno where I'm going with this, just throwing some stuff out there!
Hell Is A City/The Long Arm
You're right about Hell Is A City - a terrific film noir set in inky fifties Manchester where everyone smokes and the villain, a vicious escaped convict, is almost as hardboiled as Baker.
The Long Arm is equally atmospheric, set in fifties London, and has an intriguing plot.
think I need to
see "hell is city" sounds good and the "long arm" too cheers fellas.
Ask a Policeman
Will Hay. Unbeatable.
how could I have forgot
the mighty WH!
Maybe a draw with this ,Salty ?
It's got David Lodge as well
The Sweeney Films
Can be laborious, but worth the effort.
Top show, and proper British Cop Film
The I.P.O mob
What a cast probably not what you had in mind,Chris,but what a film.
no doubting it's topness
as a film but it's more of caper movie the police don't come out it too well.
The Blue Lamp