Cop Movies - From noir to action.

 

"Maybe I've Been running around with the wrong people" Phillip Marlowe, 1946

 

Derived from noir production (in film and literature) the police films find consolidation with the detective figure as conductor of the narrative. Although eventually resorted to physical action as Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe, it was the deductive thinking of detectives and investigators who untied the knots of criminal plots. But after James Bond started exploding things up, after Frank Bullit accelerated in San Francisco streets and Dirty Harry jumped on the school bus to save the kids from unbalanced Scorpio, movies invested more and more in physical and irrational action to solve problems. This is the very essence of a character like Dirty Harry: when theory (the law) fails, the action resolves.

"Do you feel lucky, punk?" - Dirty Harry, 1971

 

Thus the intellectual capacity of the detectives gave way to action. Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) made this transition in the Heat of the Night, Endless Night and The Organization. The films In the Heat of the Night and Bullit suggested a new approach to the genre, focusing on the figure of the policeman who is skilled both in thinking and in action.

The plot structure of Naked City (1946) curiously anticipating this trajectory. Barry Fitzgerald, playing Lieutenant Muldoon, investigates and concludes, in the tradition of intellectual detectives but conducts the final chase to the criminal climbing to the Brooklyn Bridge. Naked City practically summarizes forty years of the crime genre in film: from intellect to the physical action.

Some noir variations or attempts to update the 60 occurred in Don Siegel´s The Killers (1964) and John Boorman´s Point Blank (1967) that adds psychedelic colors the world of expressionist shadows essential to the genre.

Many consider the post-noir police films as an adaptation of westerns to the big city. Clint Eastwood´s character in Coogan's Bluf (1968) is an example of possible trajectory. Jean Claude Melville director has also mentioned his police adventures as westerns adapted to the urban setting. See Euro Cops.

It is also interesting to follow the musical moves of the genre that goes from the classical school to popular models through the 60s. Miklos Rozsa has an exemplary music in Double Indemnity (1944). With this film Rozsa establishes himself as one of the leading names on noir music. Double Indemnity is a classic for many reasons: the off narrative is exemplary (screenplay by Raymond Chandler over novel by James Cain), the fatal Philys (Barbara Stanwick) shown slick from the beginning, photography immerses characters in an environment progressively (and literally) shadowy. Musically, Rozsa makes the perfect dosage in sound commentary: the funeral march tone that opens the film sets the drama and the resumption of the theme when Fred and Philys define their plot, makes it clear that nothing will go to a happy ending. Rozsa would still make other great works in the genre as The Killers (1946) and the violent dramas of Jules Dassin, Naked City (1948), and Brute Force (1947).

Roy Webb also left his name among the great Golden Age. Strange on the Third Floor (1940), mentioned as one of the first film noirs, had suspenseful passages supported solely by Webb music. In Murder My Sweet (1944) his music is perfect, incisive but never intrusive. Follows the protagonist Phillip Marlowe (Dick Powell) and his emotional states as conductor of the narrative. For Notorious (1946) Webb wrote one of the most beautiful themes of film history, available in a selection of Hitchcock's movie themes released by Varese Sarabande in the 80s.

In On Dangerous Ground (1951), the ruthless and violent cop played by Robert Ryan is a precursor of Dirty Harry. But unlike the film noir tradition which reserved a tragic fate to the protagonists, On Dangerous Ground goes in the opposite way to the redemption of relentless policeman. Bernard Herrmann´s music also says this very clearly: from the relentless orchestral explosions of opening, the music goes to delicacy of viola solos as main musical material.

During the 60's the symphonic school gave room to pop. The James Bond series of films are a clear example (perhaps the better) of empathic association between a film and its soundtrack. The theme song of In the Heat of the Night had its own success separately from the film, something that would never happen in the symphonic suites of 40´s noir films. The romantic theme of Laura (1944) by David Raksin is an exception that proves the rule.

Lalo Schifrin did a musical update on the police soundtracks with the jazzy Bullit (1968) and Dirty Harry (1971). With Dirty Harry´s music Schifrin set a new pattern for the police cinema. The music is tense and direct to the point, as the direction of Don Siegel. The sick pleasure of Scorpio is immediately understandable in the voluptuous inner voices of Scorpio Theme. Schifrin gone forward in Magnum Force (1973) with electric basses on musical center.

With Shaft, Isaac Hayes started the well succeeded soul cinema that would hallmark its time. See Black Power Cinema. Dave Grusin followed the influence soul in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) and Three Days of Condor (1975) and would do an exemplary variation in the genre with The Yakuza (1975). Other soundtracks such as The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974) by David Shire, French Connection (1971) by Don Ellis, or The Enforcer (1976) by Jerry Fielding would work as an update of the jazz language to films. See Jazz in Cinema.

Cop movies entered the 80s aimlessly as the neo-noir I the Jury (1982) with Bill Conti music or Nighthawks (Night Hawks, 1981) with Keith Emerson music or Sudden Impact (1982) with Lalo Schifrin music. A new visual and musical aesthetic would only be set in the successful series Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, both with music by Michael Kamen. The synthetic and multiple reference music proposed by Hans Zimmer on the soundtrack of Black Rain (1991) would guide subsequent productions.

With the symphonic concept in disuse and the need to immediate empathy with the public, the contemporary cinema reinforce the use of "ready made music" from market (pop, rock) to connect to the reality of the viewer/listener. Even with examples of efficiency, such as Jerry Goldsmith's score for US Marshals (1998), films like Heat (1995) or Miami Vice (2006), both directed by Michael Mann, chose to include multiple music tracks of different sources as samples of contemporary production. It is to argument that a soundtrack as Dirty Harry is still capable to define the film and its time and musically be more interesting than the collections of pop themes that drive the contemporary film production.