Fuzz
Director: Richard Colla
Year: 1972
Rating: 6.0
A little while ago I was watching Burt Reynolds
in an old interview with Dick Cavett, if I recall correctly. He was promoting
his new film Fuzz in which he was trying to re-kickstart his film career
after another failed TV show (Dan August). He was basically dismissive of
this film but was very enthusiastic about his next film which had just wrapped
up. Reynolds was not a star at this point but very much acting like a star
jerk and Cavett was taken aback by his rudeness. He said the next film would
make him a star. Well, Reynolds was right. The next film was Deliverance.
I can understand his reticence about Fuzz because he is just part of an ensemble
piece with only slightly more screen time than others. He didn't see the
film as much of an advancement in his career. It wasn't but at the same time
looking backwards this was an intriguing film for its time.
Based on the 87th Precinct books by Ed McBain and with a screenplay by Evan
Hunter who is in fact Ed McBain, the film tries to capture the feel of the
daily down and dirty workings of a precinct - the seeming chaos, the various
personalities, the shuffling of cases as they come and go, the wierdos who
just wander in, men just doing their job. The camera and story constantly
jumps from person to person and story to story. The books are often like
this - one main story but other parallel sub-plots competing for time. Throughout
the series of books (over fifty of them) there are a set of basic characters
and though most of the time they center on Steve Carella, often the books
will instead pick up with another one of the cops as the main character.
The film leans too heavily to comedy which the books have doses of but not
to the extent here of making the cops into the Bad News Cops (similar to
the Barney Miller dry comedy TV show that came a few years later and feels
influenced by this) - but since it was written by Hunter he can't complain
too much. Off the top of my head I can't think of any other police film that
uses an ensemble group of actors/cops before this. It seems inventive for
the time if not exactly inspiring. And the main poster was a monumentally
bad representation of the film that probably kept people away. Burt in his
famous pose does not appear in the film. Nor Raquel in bra and panties holding
a gun.
The main story revolves around a man who calls to the precinct with extortion
threats that if not followed will lead to killings. They do. There are also
two teenagers that are going around setting fire to bums on the streets.
And there is a rapist on the streets. In a very movie manner and yet still
quite satisfying most of them collide in a karmic way at the end - much to
the surprise of the cops. The film takes place in Boston but the books are
in an unidentified city that always feels like NYC to me.
A great cast is here though that may be looking back more so than at the
time. Reynolds of course as Carella, Jack Weston as Meyer Meyer, Tom Skerritt
as Kling, James McEachin as Arthur Brown who decks a guy for calling him
the N word, Dan Frazer as the boss, the same role he did on Kojak for years.
On the other side of the ledger there is Yul Brynner as the extortionist,
Peter Bonerz (Bob Newhart Show) as the bomber, Tamara Dobson as the moll,
Charles Martin Smith as one of the teenage arsonists and of course the great
Raquel Welch as an undercover cop trying to entice the rapist. An easy going
basically genial film that surfs when it should have dived but still enjoyable
enough.
