Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

ronshapley Great B flick. Love the location shooting. One error however. It's 9020 Jackson, not 2090. In earlier scene ship side, you'll catch the mistake in dialog concerning the address.. This film grew out of the TV series, Lineup, which also starred Warner Anderson and Tom Tully. Lineup was also tagged San Francisco Beat. In the TV series the detectives drove Fords. In the movie, they drove Plymouths.

gordonl56 THE LINE-UP 1958 This 1958 Columbia Pictures release is a film version of the popular police series of the same name. The series ran between 1954 and 1960 and was a no nonsense police procedural along the lines of, DRAGNET.Don Siegel directs with Eli Wallach as a hit-man slash muscle type with Robert Keith as his handler. Richard Jaeckel plays the pair's local driver. There has been a foul up with a shipment of heroin being smuggled into San Francisco. Wallach and Keith have been brought from out of town to trace the "misplaced" product and retrieve said item.Wallach is a man who loves his job and is only kept in check by the older Keith. There is soon a string of bodies left littering the city as Wallach and Keith do their stuff.Called in at the start are San Francisco Detectives, Warner Anderson and Emile Meyer. They are of course one step behind the hit-man and his handler. Once the bodies and clues fall into place the chase picks up steam. Needless to say there are going to be more bodies along the way before Anderson and Meyer can close the matter.This is top flight noir which moves along at a nice pace. Director Siegel keeps things on an even keel as he goes back and forth between the crooks and the pursuing Detectives. Siegel really has a firm grip on what is needed for this kind of film. His work included, THE VERDICT, RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11, THE BIG STEAL, PRIVATE HELL 36, CRIME IN THE STREETS, EDGE OF ETERNITY, THE GUN RUNNERS, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, THE KILLERS (1964), THE SHOOTIST, CHARLIE VARRICK, TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA and DIRTY HARRY.Handling the look of the picture is the talented cinematographer, Hal Mohr. The three time Oscar nominated, and two time winner, Mohr, worked on films such as, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, WOMAN ON THE RUN, THE WILD ONE and BABY FACE NELSON.This one is well worth the time invested to watch it. Wallach is fantastic as the off kilter in the head killer.

museumofdave Far too often, car chase films made in San Francisco are laughable because the locations don't match up with reality--the magic of this film is its logic and locale accuracy; not only is this a stunning film noir that often takes place in broad daylight (without the usual attendant shadows and smoke), it is also a tour of so many legendary places that no longer exist, most notably a lengthy sequence shot at Sutro Baths, the magical Victorian amusement center that had a last gasp during the period this film was made--you can also see the dank interior of the pre-remodeled Steinhart Aquarium (also featured in Welles' Lady From Shanghai), and experience a steep drive up California Street, spotting an actual theatre marquee at the Fairmont Hotel--the Nob Hill cinema was still there instead of on Bush Street--and it's featuring An Affair To Remember! OK--Im a sucker for specific detailed shots of The City by The Bay--but when mixed with this strange tale of a jumpy psychopath, perfectly tuned by cold-blooded Eli Wallach in conjunction with his teacher, twitchy Robert Keith, as the frightening pair track down some smuggled heroin, the story tossing in in a vivid police procedural cogently assembled by Don Siegel, and ending on one of San Francisco's legendary freeways to nowhere--well, its a total winner! The downside, strictly optional, is the disc commentary--not because of affable, informative Eddie Muller, but because the jokey, better-than-thou author Elroy poses as Bad Boy Commentator rather than contribute meaningful dialogue; some may find him amusing, and like a kid who says nasty words to shock the girls, he might be; I just found him snarky and uninformative. I say watch the film, skip the commentary--The Lineup is an underrated classic noir of quality.

Robert J. Maxwell 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.