Cops could use a lesson in crowd control
People were allover the crime scene where an armed man was being sprayed with bullets and tear-gas. Bel Geddes manages to slip in and up to the perp. You're all fired!
Yea, I noticed the same thing first time I saw this on DVD. It's on TCM now and keep thinking this could be used as a training "How Not To" film for incident response training coursework.
It must have been all that left over ammo post WW2 as I couldn't figure out why the local police would fire so many rounds at the apartment door, windows et al wow, lot of potential for collatrel damage!
Overall liked this movie for its "Type" I'd give it a solid 7/10
Yeah it looked more like a gangland shootout - with strange, long pauses in between the manic fireworks. Apparently in order to allow Fonda some proper time to flash back. A fine film overall, even if Bel Geddes got a little out of hand towards the end with her melodramatic antics. 7,5/10´s about right.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Exactly-- crowd control was the least of the police's faults in this movie; they seemed to have an odd blood lust, repeatedly refusing every reasonable means of negotiation in favor of deadly force. I understand that the police being monumentally incompetent was necessary to move the story forward (and it might even have been tied into a larger theme about top-down violence inherent in the social system), but it was so ridiculous that it became frustrating.
That said, I think it is an excellent film on the whole!