User Reviews

The first half of this very realistic and gripping crime film is very good. However, this is a case where a film keeps getting better and better--culminating in an exciting and rather violent conclusion. And, while this film isn't exactly "Film Noir" in every way, it has many Noir sensibilities that will no doubt please fans of the genre.

The film stars Eli Wallach, though interestingly enough he doesn't even appear in the film for about the first 15 minutes. Instead, the film begins with a robbery gone bad in which, inexplicably, a tourist's luggage is stolen and the getaway car runs into a truck and kills a cop! The crime is so violent and senseless--until the police understand the real reason why they needed the suitcase. It turns out that tourists are unknowingly transporting souvenirs that are actually filled with heroin--and the mob will stop at nothing to get the drugs back--and I mean NOTHING! Wallach's job in the film is to retrieve these drugs and for a rather ordinary looking guy, he was amazingly cold and violent. He has no problem at all killing these tourists and ultimately he takes a mother and daughter hostage because they have inadvertently destroyed the heroin hidden in a doll. Instead of killing them, he takes them prisoner because he wants to prove to his superiors that he is not trying to cheat them. However, despite this, they don't believe him--leading to one of the more violent and amazing confrontations I have ever seen on film. I made my jaw drop--as did the very end as well. For a 1950s film, it was super-violent and highly reminiscent of Noir.

Speaking of Noir, as I said this film had many of the usual Noir elements. However, its dialog was much more polished and less gritty than Noir and the lighting and camera angles were too normal and polished (like a TV episode) to be considered Noir by many fans. Still, despite me being a huge fan of the genre, I really didn't mind as the film was still a thrilling and taut suspense film.

A highly underrated and under-appreciated little film that deserves to be seen.

Finally treated myself to the Columbia Pictures Noir Classics box set featuring THE LINEUP, one of the pivotal movies I saw as a child that burned into the memory cells to the point of trauma. The story goes that me and my eight or nine year old brothers were left in the care of a babysitter who permitted us to watch something other than the "sports, PBS, or nothing" mandate which comprised TV viewing choices in our household. We *lived* to abuse the rule and babysitters were easy pickings for unauthorized TV. She never returned to sit with us again once my dad found out what she'd let us watch, God bless her.

We had no idea what we were seeing and at first it didn't seem any different than maybe "Dragnet" -- Cops and robbers, with old looking cars & hats, as ordinary as it gets. But by the time the bad guys were menacing the little girl over powdering her doll with the stuff hidden inside of it we were hysterical, and the old dude in the wheelchair getting pushed to his death shoved me over the top right along with him. I remember my younger brother trying to reassure me that it was all make-believe but by the end of the movie I was history, and one thing was for sure: I never forgot the experience even if I didn't catch its name. I was 8 and didn't know movies had names until STAR WARS.

Tried in vain to figure out what the movie was titled for years ("the gangster movie with the guy in the wheelchair" didn't get me very far with video store clerks) until stumbling upon a description of Eli Wallach's "Dancer" character on a bio writeup for him. Knew it was the movie instantly and am rewarded to find the shock sequences just as brutal and potentially disturbing as they were 35 years ago. I doubt the movie was even cut for the TV screening we caught as it was the images of people falling to horrible deaths that did me in. Have always had a fear of heights and here may be a component of how it began.

As for the movie itself it's not so much a "film noir" potboiler as it is half a dry police procedural about noble San Francisco homicide cops on the trail of a vicious gangland killer. Marvelously square and by the book. But mixed in with it and eventually wresting control of the narrative is one of the most fascinating studies in psychopathic behavior to find its way on screen. Eli Wallach's killer is easily as frightening as Andy Robinson would later be in director Don Siegel's masterpiece DIRTY HARRY, though for different reasons.

One reason is that unlike Robinson's "Killer" we actually have a chance to sort of get to know & maybe even like Dancer. With shades of Wallach's later equally psycho Tuco character from THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY surfacing in the steam room when he asks a thug who tried to cross him "You think that'll cover it?" Richard Jaeckel also comes to life as a "Wheel Man" (great 50's cop movie lingo + cheezy hood names all over this baby) who is just as crazy & promises to get them out of 'Frisco after the heat drops its net.

The film also bears an eyebrow raising similarity to another great San Francisco cop movie, BULLITT, including the dry police procedural of tracking an unknown mob connected killer, travelogue tourist footage of 'Frisco contrasted with the dingy drab tenement rooms its characters inhabit, and both films climaxing with riveting car chases along the scenic routes showing off the city at its most unromantic & frenzied light. I didn't even mind the rear projection screen footage and by golly found myself rooting for these maniacs to actually get away. You will too.

Maybe because they were more interesting than the cops who are as square (there's that word again!), by the book and incorruptible as saints to the point of satire. Even though Dancer was a psychopath and a spree killer run amok he wasn't a greedy guy. Had his set of rules & played by them, and as long as you didn't get in his way or try to cross him he could be charming for a few minutes. Then he'd waste you because that was his job, he was good at it, and even enjoyed it. No hard feelings?

9/10

Dear Don Seigel,

your noir flick The Lineup works both as a police as well as a thieves procedural. The film begins with a bang as a car crashes into a policeman and then the driver crashes the car into a post. The police uncover a plot where heroin is placed in idols/curios brought home by unsuspecting tourists. Then the action shifts to Wallach and his mentor who arrive in town to recover the heroin from the tourists. I like the way you shot Eli Wallach's introduction scene with a dolly out of him reading a book about English grammar in a plane. But his role was a bit hard to digest. I mean why would they send a psycho like him to collect all the drugs? But it is all good far fetched entertainment. His creepy misogynistic mentor. Their alcoholic driver. The lonely housewife who falls for Wallach. The writer (Sterling Silliphant) really packed it in despite the movie's short length (82 minutes). The film mostly uses real life locations around San Francisco. I did not like the choice of camera angles during some of the tense moments like when Wallach threatens the Chinese servant at a house where he goes to recover the heroin. But the long car chase towards the end is worthy of a big budget film. Overall, a nice little noir, Don.

Best Regards, Pimpin.

(7/10)

Dark crime drama about heroine smuggling into the US from China that shows the gritty streets of San Francisco in a different light than normal. It appears that unsuspecting passengers have stashes of heroine placed in the nicknack's they have purchased abroad, and hoodlums such as Eli Wallach and Robert Keith are sent out to retrieve them. One such person is a toupee-less Raymond Bailey ("The Beverly Hillbillies") who dominates much of the first half of the film as a possible suspect in the heroine ring. Another attempts blackmail and is murdered in a sauna; A manservant refuses to allow the gangsters to take the package (to apparently switch it with another package) and looses his life. Finally, a single mother and their daughter are victimized by the gangsters and end up in terror as the gangsters ride them all over SF and the general area (including a newly built freeway) after the little girl uses the powder hidden inside her porcelain doll on its face.

There are some really graphic violent scenes. The set-up for the shooting in the sauna is really suspenseful. Robert Keith is cast against type, and in one scene gives an interesting assessment of the gangster's life compared to normal people's life towards the single mom. Eli Wallach is excellent as the most dangerous of the drug ring. When he is told by the boss of the heroine ring he is dead, his reaction is priceless, leading to one of the best shots of violence since "Kiss of Death's" notorious old lady on the staircase sequence. Later, there is another graphic demise in which the viewer cannot help twitch in agony over the psychological feelings of pain.

I thought that the use of the single mother and young daughter was well handled; It could have been done with more manipulation by the kid being too cutesy pie, but that doesn't happen here. The writers do a good job in preventing those segments from being too cloying.

Columbia's Film Noirs tended to be more violent than others, especially as the cycle of that genre began to cool off in the mid-late 50's. Along with "The Garment Jungle" and the later "Experiment in Terror", "The Lineup" has a realistic horror to it that would later be used in many classic crime shows of the 60's and '70's. However, I didn't find that the title was appropriate for the film; Other than one scene of the line-up of ship's porters in the beginning, it had nothing to do with police line-ups. "Heroine Smuggling" would have been a more appropriate title, although that might sound more exploitive than mainstream.

Long before "Thunderball" director Terence Young made his first-rate thriller about vicious drug dealers terrorizing blind, helpless Audrey Hepburn in her apartment after she brought back a doll stuffed with heroin in the 1967 Warner Brothers' release "Wait Until Dark," director Don Siegel made the minor league crime thriller "The Line Up" (1958) about American tourists returning from Hong Kong with souvenirs in their luggage that contain heroin. The catch is none of these unsuspecting tourists know that they are being used as mules by narcotics smugglers. Mind you, one of them is a sailor who knows that he has a ceramic horse filled with heroin. Anyway, the syndicate has hired a couple of out-of-town hoods, Dancer (Eli Wallach of "The Magnificent Seven") and Julian (Robert Keith of "The Wild One"), to retrieve the narcotics from the tourists without either arousing their suspicions or alerting the authorities. However, nothing goes according to plan, and our anti-heroic protagonists find themselves wading through hot water. Siegel makes great use of many authentic San Francisco landmarks (see other user comments) in this gritty, realistic, but modestly made melodrama. A gay subtext pervades this thriller. The two thugs behave like a teacher and his student, and a scene is set in a steam bath room in the Seamen's Club.

Two flat-foot San Francisco cops, Lt. Ben Guthrie (Warner Anderson of "Objective, Burma!") and Inspector Al Quine (Emile Meyers of "Paths of Glory"), investigate this puzzling case. The clues gradually fall together. Meanwhile, our chummy out-of-town thugs run into trouble at virtually every turn after they receive their instructions from a dockside informant in a trench coat. Dancer is a trigger-happy psychopath with little patience for his victims, and his older, level-headed partner Julian likes to record the last words of their victims. Unlike Dancer, Julian doesn't pack a pistol. Instead, he works at keeping Dancer in line. They have to track down three tourists and retrieve the heroin from them. "Dirty Harry" director Don Siegel does as good a job as can be expected from the contrived screenplay by advertising writer turned scenarist Stirling Silliphant who later wrote "The Towering Inferno" and received an Oscar for penning "In the Heat of the Night." Unfortunately, Silliphant didn't do enough research into firearms. The revolver that Dancer totes with a silencer is incredibly lame. Silencers cannot mute the discharge of a revolver because—unlike automatic weapons--revolvers have too many additional holes in them to vent the sound of the gun being charged. I guess that it looked good, but it isn't really practical as a weapon, but then why let a little misinformation ruin an atmospheric flick. Dancer invades a luxurious, upscale, San Francisco home and guns down a foreign butler to get the heroin stashed in a cutlery collection.

Later, they approach a ship worker who brought in a consignment of drugs. Predictably, he refuses to hand it over until he gets some more cash. This is the notorious scene where our lead antagonist lugs a revolver with a silencer into a steam bath and shoots the ship worker then recovers the junk. The toughest part for the villains comes when they have to locate a statue filled with heroin from a single mother and her daughter. Complications occur when Dancer and Julian learn that the daughter discovered the packet of dope wedged up into their exotic doll. The innocent little girl used the heroin to power her doll's face. Julian warns Dancer that they cannot come up light on their deliveries. At the rendezvous where Dancer is supposed to deliver the narcotics, Julian suggests that he wait for 'the man' (played by Vaughn Taylor of "The Professionals") to explain what happened. Julian doesn't like the idea that Dancer and he will become as hunted as their prey if they don't explain the shortage. Unfortunately, the Man isn't impressed with Dancer's story and calls him a dead man. An infuriated Dancer throws the Man—who pushes himself around in a wheelchair—off the second story at their rendezvous at a popular skating ring onto the ice. What distinguishes this brutal scene is the wheel chair guy strikes another guy on the skating rink below! You can see this when the crowd gathers around the two men. The scene is reminiscent of Henry Hathaway's thriller "Kiss of Death" where psychotic Richard Widmark pushes an old lady in a wheelchair to her death down a flight of stairs.

The chief flaw in "The Line Up" lies in its lack of closure concerning the show-stopping opening scene at San Francisco Airport. An upscale opera employee (Raymond Bailey, later of CBS-TV comedy series "The Beverly Hillbillies") watches a porter steal his luggage and cram it into a cab. The frantic cabbie peels out of the airport, runs down a cop who manages to get off a lucky shot that kills the driver. Later, Siegel establishes that the cabbie was a junkie. Richard Jaeckel turns in a memorable performance as a local hood with a drinking problem who serves as their wheel man. The climactic car chase through San Francisco qualifies as pretty hair-raising stuff considering how old this police procedural is and it may represent one of the earliest usages of an unfinished freeway by the villains to escape their pursuers. Interested film buffs should peruse author Stuart Kaminski's 1974 monograph "Don Siegel: Director" to learn more about the chase. Despite being in black & white, this thriller contains scenes where Dancer's wounded victims leak blood on their hands and in the carpet. "Bullets or Ballots" lenser Hal Mohr, who was a San Francisco native, composes some scenic shots of the City by the Bay. One of the coolest compositions occurs when Dancer guns down an Asian butler on a staircase. Dancer appears in the foreground shooting off screen at the butler who we see reflected in a mirror in the background as he charges up the stairs.

Well the film had it's strong points: great actors, a lot of Twilight Zone veterans and Eli Wallah and a great noir vibe as well but these criminals, well they aren't too bright ... they put all this planning into picking marks to be mules and yet they are totally sloppy and inept about the pick ups.

The initial attempt was ridiculous; how much attention can you garner, especially when the mark is in on it? Do you need to be that obvious, a frenzied flight, a car crash, a cop killed? For the 2nd pickup, you kill a guy in the steam-room, with witnesses all around? No too bright ... Wallach isn't even dressed while the guy is dead right there in the steam room 5 feet away from him... why not go up to his room, secure the drugs and then kill him where no one will find him for awhile? Then they kill a servant for really no good reason and then they kidnap a woman and her 12 year old child (the kid used a huge bag of heroin to powder her doll's nose and no one noticed ... ok... great mother: lets her kid play w/ a giant bag of dope all day and then accepts a ride from 3 creeps in a car) ... and it seems these cagey criminals plan to murder the girl and her mother after they introduce them to the kingpin so he can share in the experience ... yeah, that won't attract too much attention, sounds wise, judicious ... then to wrap up, Wallach pushes an old man in a wheelchair to his death in front of hundreds of potential witnesses, nuns and kids and such, after which he flees the scene in an attention attracting panic ... smooth fellas, real smooth ... and it still took the cops the entire film to catch up with these guys ...

Anyway, I enjoyed the film but I much prefer smarter criminals who play it a little more carefully and don't draw unnecessary attention to themselves throughout the entire movie ...

Director Don Siegel has a reputation for having done a number of slam-bang crime stories, such as "Dirty Harry," although he hasn't limited himself to that genre. (I don't know what to call "The Beguiled." Southern Gothic?) But this one ranks up there with his better examples.

Two hoods arrive in San Francisco to retrieve packages of heroin from three unwitting carriers arriving on a ship. The smack is hidden in various objects, like statues. The hoods are the psychopathic Eli Wallach and the suave Robert Keith. They've been hired to get the dope and leave it at a drop point in the now-defunct Sutro's Baths on a cliff overlooking the beach. The local big wig who controls the dope traffic is known to them, and to just about everyone else, simply as "the man." Nobody seems to know who he is.

Roughly the first half of the film is about the police gradually catching on to the smuggling scheme and tracking down the carriers, innocent though the carriers may be. It's not dull. It's just familiar. We've all seen police procedurals. And there's nothing particularly interesting about either Warner Baxter or Emile Meyer as the two cops grimly carrying out their investigation.

The two hoods, shortly joined by local wheel man Richard Jaekel, are a different matter. The soft-spoken elderly ("almost 50") Robert Keith seems to be in charge. He teaches the younger Wallach to use the subjunctive mood when speaking. "If I were to do that..." instead of, "If I was to do that ..." Some have found a homoerotic subtext in their relationship but, if it's there, it slipped by my apperceptive apparatus. Keith also reins in Wallach, who has a propensity for using the silenced .38 Smith and Wesson he carries around. A silencer was a novelty at the time and some attention is given to it in inserts and in dialog. The director was to move on to bigger silencers in "The Killers" (1964), and monumental weapons in "Dirty Harry."

The first carrier, the one who was paid to smuggle in a statue, has accidentally stumbled across the stash and he tries to extort an additional thousand dollars from Wallach. That was a big mistake.

Wallach shows up at the mansion of the second innocent and tells the Chinese house boy that there's been an error in the luggage department and he, Wallach, must now retrieve the cutlery set that the mansion's owner picked up. The houseboy objects strenuously. Another mistake.

The third stash has been hidden away in a Japanese doll and brought in by a mother and her little daughter. Keith and Wallach insinuate themselves into the mother's good graces and get into her apartment at the Mark Hopkins, only to find that the girl has used the heroin to powder her dollie's pure white face.

The mother and daughter don't get killed. They're taken hostage and driven to the drop site where Wallach will try to explain to "the man" that the third stash is gone for good. And if the man doesn't believe Wallach, he can check with the mother and daughter who are being held in the car outside.

Wallach's confrontation with the man is splendidly staged. The man, in a bit of wildly imaginative casting, is Vaughn Taylor, a non-offensive character actor who is usually seen as a postman or office clerk or some young lady's father. He slowly rolls to the drop site in a wheelchair. There are multiple close ups of Taylor's impassive face staring dead ahead as Wallach leans on his shoulder and tries desperately to explain the situation. Taylor sits silently until finally, when Wallach is finished, he has a couple of lines. The first is, "You're dead." And the second includes, "Nobody sees me." This failure to grasp the significance of events outrages Wallach. You may have seen Richard Widmark push an old lady down the stairs in "Kiss of Death." Here you have the opportunity to watch Wallach shove a man in a wheelchair off a balcony and see him drop fifty feet to his death.

There's a problem with the casting though. Eli Wallach is a decent enough actor but he's best when he's part of an ensemble or in an ancillary role. Here he's forced to pretty much carry the last third of the film but his pockmarked face and chipmunk teeth fall just short of being interesting enough for the job. A few close shots of Wallach go a long way.

The ending involves another car chase around the streets of San Francisco. It's a beautiful little city, only sixty-four square miles, and even its seedier parts are colorful. But this pursuit is in accelerated motion and, after "Bullet", all car chases in the city look a little insignificant.