Former Chicago cop Jim Slade (Burt Lancaster) is recently released from prison. Linda Thorpe (Susan Clark) is his socially-conscious parole officer. He joins his friend Quartz Willinger to be a security guard at a college. Quartz had been injured while trying to stop a restaurant hold-up. There is a break-in at a psych professor's office and some session tapes with student-patients are stolen. One of the students is the daughter of Senator Clayborne and she is later killed. Sheriff Jack Casey quickly arrests the religious nut janitor, but Slade is unconvinced.
This is a neo-noir hard-boiled detective movie. It is very twisty and turny. I'm sure that it all works on paper although I'm less certain if these are real breathing people. Initially, I didn't buy either Slade or Thorpe. I don't know how ex-police could survive prison. For Linda, I don't buy a P. O. who backs up all of her charges. Most of them must be guilty. Unless the cops are exceedingly bad, she wouldn't push so hard. It's all a little off.
I do like the setup of the murder mystery. Catherine Bach from Dukes of Hazzard gets her first acting credit. This has a good many suspects. Maybe there are too many. The twists get a bit too twisty. Looking back, Linda makes a little more sense although Quartz makes less sense. It's great to see Burt Lancaster's name as co-writer and co-director. The writing needs some simplifying. The directing is functional 70's directing. This is mostly Burt's star power guiding this movie through it all. It is telling that his character needs to do a lot of exposition in the last act.
This is a neo-noir hard-boiled detective movie. It is very twisty and turny. I'm sure that it all works on paper although I'm less certain if these are real breathing people. Initially, I didn't buy either Slade or Thorpe. I don't know how ex-police could survive prison. For Linda, I don't buy a P. O. who backs up all of her charges. Most of them must be guilty. Unless the cops are exceedingly bad, she wouldn't push so hard. It's all a little off.
I do like the setup of the murder mystery. Catherine Bach from Dukes of Hazzard gets her first acting credit. This has a good many suspects. Maybe there are too many. The twists get a bit too twisty. Looking back, Linda makes a little more sense although Quartz makes less sense. It's great to see Burt Lancaster's name as co-writer and co-director. The writing needs some simplifying. The directing is functional 70's directing. This is mostly Burt's star power guiding this movie through it all. It is telling that his character needs to do a lot of exposition in the last act.