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Cops and Robbers (1973 film)

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Cops and Robbers
Promotional movie poster
Directed byAram Avakian
Written byDonald E. Westlake
Produced byElliott Kastner
George Pappas
StarringCliff Gorman
Joseph Bologna
CinematographyDavid L. Quaid
Edited byBarry Malkin
Music byMichel Legrand
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release dates
  • August 15, 1973 (1973-08-15) (New York City)
  • August 17, 1973 (1973-08-17) (U.S.)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Cops and Robbers is a 1973 crime comedy film directed by Aram Avakian with an original screenplay by Donald E. Westlake which Westlake subsequently expanded into a novel. The film stars Cliff Gorman as Tom and Joseph Bologna as Joe, two New York City cops who turn to crime to fund an early retirement for each.

Plot

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Police officers Tom and Joe are neighbors living an OK suburban life with homes, a swimming pool and families in a high-density community and they commute to work together. Both are working-class and looking for more money for a better lifestyle.

Joe robs a liquor store while in uniform and literally walks away into the night. After that, he tells Tom, and both ultimately realize that pulling off a big heist would get them out of a dangerous job and, since they are NYPD officers, it gives them a big advantage in whatever crime they choose to accomplish. So, what do they do? They go to the mob!

Tom goes to a mobster’s house and asks what he would pay $2 million for them to steal. The gangster does some verbal jousting and finally tells Gorman about bearer bonds and that he would need to steal $10 million worth of them to earn the $2 million.

It’s how they accomplish the heist and get the payoff that offers the clever details that make the movie. Here are some of “Cops and Robbers’” neat twists:

• After Tom in disguise meets with the mobster, some of the gang try to follow him to find out his true identity. As they follow him up an escalator from the subway, Joe holds up the line after Tom has passed. Of course, the gangsters don’t realize at that moment that the two are together, and by the time they get to the street, Tom has disappeared, as has Joe.

• After deciding to rob a Wall Street brokerage during a tickertape parade for astronauts just back from space (the film is set in the early 1970s), they steal the bearer bonds, but then rip them up and throw them out a window as part of the parade celebration of a cascade of paper coming out of skyscraper windows. This idea is the key component to the whole robbery: they don’t have to worry about anyone finding the stolen bonds because the bonds no longer exist, and the media report that $12 million was stolen (an ironic twist is that the executive of the brokerage house robbed by the duo snags $2 million for himself with no one but the two crooked cops the wiser).

• For transportation, the duo uses patrol units (“borrowed” and then returned unnoticed from a police garage). Of course, both have uniforms (although Tom is a plain-clothes detective), which is to their advantage, especially at the end when they make the pickup of the $2 million in Central Park in an area where only bicycles are allowed - but so are police cars.

In the end, they survive the mob’s trap in the park and get away with the $2 million, while the mobster is killed because he fouled up and lost the money to the two cops.

Cast

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Additional information

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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

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Roger Greenspun wrote a favorable review of the film for the New York Times.[1]

Soundtrack

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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)

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Greenspun, Roger (August 16, 1973). "Cops and Robbers (1973): Police Team Engineers Caper in 'Cops and Robbers'". The New York Times. 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. [dead link‍]
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