Vice Squad (1953)

Studio: MGM
Theatrical Release: July 31st, 1953
DVD-R Release: Jan. 3rd, 2012
Rating: Unrated!
Review by Craig Sorensen


Welcome to a day in the life of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Captain Barnaby (Edward G. Robinson of Mr. Winkle Goes To War).  He’s having a hell of a day.  Early in the morning one of his beat cops gets shot trying to stop a couple of car thieves.  The only witness to the crime won’t testify.  He’s got some girl bugging him about her mom marrying a phony count.  He’s got a television interview today, cops bugging him about budgets and police line-ups that need supervised.  He’s also got a stool pigeon saying there’s going to be a bank robbery sometime in the near future...

Vice Squad kind of shares a similar structure to Detective Story with Kirk Douglas.  Detective Story came out two years earlier so I’m assuming that this sharing a structure with an Academy Award winner isn’t coincidence.  Still, the film is fun.  You could do a lot worse with your Saturday afternoon.  This is a B movie all the way.  You’ve got two aging stars on their way down (Robinson and Goddard) and a full cast of great character actors.  Unlike A movie Detective Story, Vice Squad chooses to focus on a more action oriented bank robbery/cop killer case.  I like Detective Story a lot (really a LOT) but it can get really stagy as it all takes place in two or three rooms.  Vice Squad eschews that by following our group of crooks as they try to pull off their big heist.  It does liven things up a bit.  There’s also quite a bit of humor.  There’s a great throwaway bit with a panty theif and a strange scene with Percy Helton playing a crazy guy who thinks that ‘the shadows’ are trying to get him from out of the television.  There’s also a funny performance from Porter Hall as the sole witness to the cop killing, who seems more worried that his wife will find out he was with a busty blonde.

What would be kind of a run of the mill 50’s noir is elevated by an excellent cast.  Robinson is always fun to watch and he does a great job here.  He plays things pretty straight and doesn’t chew the scenery like I was expecting.  Paulette Goddard doesn’t have too much to do as the madam Mona Ross but she’s fun in her small roll.  What makes this film though are all the great character actors that fill out the cast.  I’ve already mentioned Porter Hall as mortician Jack Hartrampf and every film benefits from a guest appearance from Percy Helton.  But you’ve also got a great performance from Adam Williams as a hood with cold feet, Edward Binns as gang leader Al Barkis and a baby faced Lee Van Cleef as the getaway driver.

Vice Squad makes it’s DVD debut via MGM’s MOD (Made On Demand) Limited Edition Collection.  The black & white transfer looks great with deep, solid blacks levels and good contrast.  There is the ocasional speck of dirt or small scratch but over all this print is in good shape.  It’s presented in it’s original 1.33:1 aspect ratio and maintains the original mono audio mix.  Everything sounded fine to me on that front.  There’s no trailer or anything on this disc.