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.