I love this movie so much

the audience applauded

Memorable, crazy movie

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

When a police officer is shot and killed after apprehending a suspect in a car theft, all hell breaks loose in the Los Angeles police department. Commander Edward G. Robinson is hellbent on apprehending the killer, and finds that the one key witness (Porter Hall) won't talk. He is under the advisement of his attorney to keep his mouth shut, but it is clear to Robinson that Hall is hiding something. That something is a blonde mistress which the portly Hall fears that a revelation of will end up being revealed to his unseen wife. In the meantime, Robinson also utilizes a local madam (Paulette Goddard) for clues as to the identity of the people involved in this case, while also investigating the claim of an aging conman that a Beverly Hills bank is about to be held up.Poor Hall can't get a break. When his shady lawyer gets him off on a rift, Robinson has him accused of being a masher. Later, he's a public drunk, and more charges follow suit in Robinson's efforts to keep Hall detained. He knows that once Hall and his mistress (Joan Vohs) come upon each other, he'll get Hall to co-operate, and the way he goes about this is very clever. There's a very amusing sequence with Vohs, a fur model, being escorted away from work after modeling a fur for a client where the law-abiding police officer grabs the stoll off of her to hand back to the department store supervisor. Another amusing sequence has Goddard (basically underused but amusing in her few scenes) being taken in by the police while interviewing a "client". She has a very amusing exchange with Robinson in regards to "pick-ups", and you can see that Robinson, the victim in this wisecrack, is very amused by it.Yet, as light-hearted as Robinson's character is, he ain't no sap, and when he does come across the man he believes to be the cop killer, he leaves no detail unexposed as he reveals what will happen to any cop killer as they head to the electric chair. His tongue may be in his cheek as he deals with getting the information he needs from witnesses, but when it comes to protecting his own, he is very serious. K.T. Stevens has little to do as his devoted secretary, but having had an interesting film career up to this time, I thought that it was very important to mention her, as she receives third billing. Unbilled Percy Helton is also memorable as a paranoid visitor to the precinct who has a fear of television. Several great shots of mid 1950's Los Angeles locations (going from downtown to Beverly Hills to Santa Monica Beach) give it a period look that adds to the reality of the drama.

An unsuspecting man, Jack Hartrampf, the owner of a funeral parlor, is seen coming out of a tryst with a young woman. Little prepares him for watching from the shadows as two criminals kill a policeman who discovered the pair were up to no good. Jack is of two minds, on the one hand it is his civil duty to report what he saw, on the other, he is a married man who cannot be involved in a scandal. He is taken as a witness, anyhow.At the police station the day is starting for Capt. Barnaby, a hard working man facing another tough day at the center of all sorts of police matters needing his attention. The death of one of his men hurts Barmaby as well as enrages him. He knows Jack Hartrampf saw exactly what happened, but he cannot make the man go out of his way to help. With the help of his highly paid lawyer, Hartrampf is released, but Barnaby has a way to get him back as a material witness.Capt. Barnaby hears from a man being held at the station about a possible robbery at a bank. The criminal has heard on the street this piece of information, which he uses to get out of detention. Barnaby's life is further complicated when Mona Ross, the owner of a "escort service" knows one of the potential bank robbers, one Al Barkis. He uses his leverage in keeping two of her girls to get the woman to cooperate."Vice Squad" the MGM release was one of the better B type films of the era, something that was the case of releases that were produces as fillers as double features. Arnold Laven directed this crime drama set in the Los Angeles of the time. The screenplay is by Lawrence Roman, an adaptation of the novel "Harness Bull" written by Leslie White.At the time the great Edward G. Robinson was perhaps not the bright star of his early career, but he kept making movies which he made better by his intelligent approach that was his hallmark. He was also a marked man in the era of the Hollywood 'witch hunt'. Mr. Robinson is a pleasure to watch in "Vice Squad". Here he plays a good man, a far cry for this start in the cinema. He carries the film on the strength of his performance. There are things that will appear as politically incorrect in the way Barnaby torments the poor milquetoast of Hartrampf, something that was not an issue at the time when the film was made. His methods might not have gone according to the book, but he got the results expected of his rank.Paulette Goddard has the second billing as Mona Ross. Her role is a small one, but she is a welcome presence in the story. The supporting players enhance the picture, especially Porter Hall as Hartrampf. Edward Binns and Lee Van Cleef are the criminals at the heart of the plot; both men give good performances.Joseph Biroc, a veteran cinematographer gives us a glimpse of different parts of Los Angeles as it looked in those years. The musical score is credited to Herschel Burke Gilbert. "Vice Squad" is one of the best films of the genre thanks to Arnold Laven inspired direction.

A cop-killer main plot is woven into a typical day in a police captain's LA precinct. I really like seeing Barry Kelley's shyster lawyer get the run-around, getting all huffy and dyspeptic while the cops squeeze his client (Hall). Kelley was so good at smug, high- powered lawyer types that it's fun seeing him flustered for a change. The movie's almost a rogue's gallery of shady characters from the 50's, including that great little gnome Percy Helton whose deluded character apparently has "tv images" following him around! I'm just sorry we don't see more of the coquettish Goddard and her "escort" service (now what was that phone number again?).Nothing exceptional here, just a really well-paced look at a police precinct in action. So look quickly because the characters-- excepting Robinson's police captain-- move in and out briskly, as do the many LA-area locations, circa 1953. At the same time, many of the cameo characters are well- etched. Note, for example, how the mortuary's secretary tries to pull a "bait and switch" on a customer, using an advertised $650 service as bait and then switching to a much more expensive one. That's the sort of incidental touch that really adds color, especially to a B- movie like this.Speaking of touches, note the questionable tactics the cops use in chasing down the killers. Getting wimpy undertaker Hall to lie about his eye-witness identification is perhaps the most legally questionable, but not the only one. There's a clear effort at portraying police methods more realistically than usual, especially for the politically chilled 1950's. Anyway, in my little book, this is Hollywood thick ear at its slickest and most watchable.

Vice Squad (1953) ** (out of 4) Boring crime drama about the day of a police Captain (Edward G. Robinson), which starts with a cop killing that could be linked to a bank robbery. This film really comes off as a poor man's Detective Story and if you've seen that film then you'll probably find yourself pretty bored here. Robinson sleepwalks through his role and there's none of that usual energy from the actor. The supporting cast, including Paulette Goddard and Lee Van Cleef in a small role, are equally dry. None of the various stories are of any interest and the comedy attempts with the harassment of a witness falls flat on its face.