Investigation criminelle

Arnold Laven's VICE SQUAD is a 1953 "police procedural" B that follows LA police chief Edward G. Robinson around for a day and he sees it all: a patrolman shot, a marriage bunco, pickpockets, an "escort service", a bank heist, police snitches, and other flotsam and jetsam with some harmless insanity and adultery thrown in for good measure. It's all in a day's work for the chief, a no-nonsense man with a kind side (reminiscent of Robinson's "Asa Keyes" only less verbose) who gives everything from misdemeanors to murder raps the attention they merit and even manages to squeeze in an appearance on a TV talk show (cut short, of course, when he finds out the cop died). He's got time for everyone and always gets his man but the methods the police use would cause rioting in the streets today. Oh well, the ends justify the means and it's all for a good cause at the end of this day.

Actors like Eddie G., Barbara Stanwyck, and a host of others always did their professional best in these kinds of '50s B's which makes them a pleasure to watch even if the movies themselves aren't so hot. This one's not bad with the LA locations and unsung character actors (milquetoast Porter Hall, sinister Lee Van Cleef, sweaty Adam Williams, and an uncredited Percy Helton) all helping to raise it a notch above the routine. The billed-above-the-title co-star Paulette Goddard didn't hurt, either, and makes the most of her brief scenes. She's a sassy "escort operator" in sunglasses and mink that was probably based on "Hollywood Madam" Brenda Allen, in the news at the time for testifying before a Senate subcommittee hearing on police corruption in LA. Those hearings became the basis for William McGiver's THE BIG HEAT, which was made the same year and, in fact, VICE SQUAD seems like a "good cop/bad cop" counterpoint to Fritz Lang's brutal noir.