Cops and Robbers (1973 film)

Cops and Robbers
Cops and Robbers
	Promotional movie poster
Directed by	Aram Avakian
Written by	Donald E. Westlake
Produced by	Elliott Kastner ; George Pappas
Starring	Cliff Gorman ; Joseph Bologna
Cinematography	David 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.);
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Cops and Robbers is a 1973 crime comedy film directed by Aram Avakian with an original screenplay by Donald E. Westlake which he subsequently expanded into a novel. The film stars Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna as Tom and Joe, two corrupt New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers who plan a heist to fund an early retirement for each.

Plot

NYPD Detective Tom Loomis and Officer Joe Fortunato are working class neighbors in a high-density residential community in Queens. Though they have rather content lives with families and homes, Tom and Joe are unhappy with their dangerous policing jobs that offer little pay, and seek more money for a better lifestyle.

One night, Joe robs a liquor store while in uniform and simply walks away. Realizing the potential in using his police powers to commit more financially-lucrative crimes, Joe tells Tom, who agrees with the prospect of the pair abusing their authority to commit a heist so they can finally leave the NYPD. Tom visits the house of a mobster seeking an offer for a heist worth $2 million; the mobster ultimately informs them of $10 million worth of bearer bonds at a Wall Street brokerage house and offers a $2 million cut of the earnings if they can successfully steal them. After Tom meets with the mobster, the mafia, suspicious of Tom's intentions and police identity, tries to trail Tom into the New York City Subway, but Joe manages to hold up a line, allowing both to escape in the crowd.

Tom and Joe decide to rob the brokerage house in patrol uniforms during a ticker-tape parade for returning NASA astronauts, but after stealing the bonds, they rip them up and throw them out of a window alongside the ticker tape. This idea is the key component to the whole heist: as the stolen bonds no longer physically exist, no one will find them. During the robbery, the executive of the brokerage house robbed by the duo snags $2 million for himself, and the media reports $12 million was stolen.

Tom and Joe flee in police cars into a section of Central Park where only bicycles and emergency vehicles are allowed, where they are intended to collect their $2 million payout, but the pickup is revealed to be a trap by the mob. However, the pair survive the trap and flee with the $2 million, while the mobster is killed for his failures.

Cast

Cliff Gorman as NYPD Detective Tom Loomis
Joseph Bologna as NYPD Officer Joe Fortunato
Delphi Lawrence as Rich Lady
Charlene Dallas as Secretary
John P. Ryan as Pasquale "Patsy" Aniello
Dolph Sweet as George
Joe Spinell as Marty
Shepperd Strudwick as Mr. Eastpoole
James Ferguson as Liquor Store Clerk
Frances Foster as Bleeding Lady
Richard Ward as NYPD Officer Paul Jones
Gayle Gorman as Mary
Walt Gorney as Wino
George Harris II as Harry
Ellen Holly as Ms. Wells
Randy Jurgensen as Randy
Albert Henderson as Cop
Martin Kove as Ambulance Attendant

Additional information

This film was also released under the following titles:

Entimotatoi kleftes – Greece (transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title)
Flics et voyous – France
Polícias e Ladrões – Portugal
Rosvot ja jeparit – Finland
Se ci provi... io ci sto! – Italy
Snutar som robbar – Sweden
Treffpunkt Central Park – West Germany
Unos policías muy ladrones – Spain

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:

Main Title (Cops and Robbers)
The Sellers
Uptown
The Buyer
Suburbia
Downtown
Wall Street
Papa Joe, The Padrone
The Caper
The Lush Life
The Chase
The Sleep Song
The Chase (alternate version)

References

^ Greenspun, Roger (August 16, 1973). "Cops and Robbers (1973): Police Team Engineers Caper in 'Cops and Robbers'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 24, 2012. 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.

External links

[1] Greenspun, Roger (August 16, 1973). "Cops and Robbers (1973): Police Team Engineers Caper in 'Cops and Robbers'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 24, 2012. 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.

[1]