Riot Squad

My husband and I watched this one under the alternative title "Police Patrol," with a new set of opening credits that gave the title and the cast members but no one else — no writers, director, cinematographer or anything — though Harry S. Webb both produced and directed, the screenplay was by Jack Natteford and Barney Sarecky (who was later involved as a producer on some of the Bela Lugosi Monograms, in connection with which it's irresistible to point out that his last name rhymes with "drecky"), the cinematographers were Roy Overbaugh and H. C. Ramsay, the film editor was Fred Bain and the sound recorder was Tom Lambert, assisted by M. Leon and J. C. Landrick. The cast was almost as obscure as the behind-the-camera folk; the only actor I'd heard of before was Madge Bellamy, top-billed — she'd been a silent ingénue of some reputation, had fallen in the early sound era, but had made her best-remembered film, as the heroine of "White Zombie" (another Lugosi connection!), the year before this one.

"Riot Squad" begins with our two police-officer heroes, detectives Bob Larkin (Pat O'Malley) and Mac McCue (James Flavin), coming across a dying gangster and asking who killed him. With the rotten sound quality of this film (especially as it's no doubt deteriorated over the years) at first I thought the actor said, "No one," and was intending on keeping his *omertá* to his grave, but later it developed that the noise he made just before he expired was "Nolan." Nolan (Harrison Greene) is a nightclub owner who's the head of the rackets in town, but the real boss — at least it's hinted from a phone call between the two — is his girlfriend Lil Daley (Madge Bellamy). Nolan's right-hand man, Diamonds Janeck (Addison Richards), tells Lil she should seduce McCue so the gang can set him up and kill him, thereby eliminating the key witness to Nolan's guilt, but McCue leaves Lil's apartment before the trap can be sprung. The next day, Larkin, with his own designs on Lil, visits her and McCue recognizes his car outside and steals his distributor cap. Larkin is late getting back to the police station and he and McCue get in a fight, allowing a prisoner to escape. Because of this, the police chief at first tells Larkin and McCue they're fired, but later relents — sort of: they can continue to be cops, but they're busted from plainclothesmen back to uniforms and assigned to the worst job in the department, the riot squad.

What's frustrating about "Riot Squad" is it's actually a pretty serviceable crime story for the period that with major-studio production values and actors (imagine it at Warners with James Cagney, Pat O'Brien and Bette Davis!) could have been an exciting, entertaining thriller. Instead it gets the full weight of the budgetary limits on indie producers in the early 1930's. Webb's direction is reasonably paced (though without the relentless speed a Warners director would have brought to it) but the cinematography is bland. Scenes that cry out for the *film noir* treatment get shot in harmonious gray tones and there are almost no close-ups: the camera is miles away from the action and scene after scene gets played in a static setup before an immobile camera. Turn the sound off and ignore the cars and this would look like a film from 1913, not 1933. The acting is also nothing to write home about — except for Bellamy, who made it clear why she's the one member of the cast you're likely to have heard of before: though she's hamstrung by the failure of writers Natteford and Sarecky to give her character much of a motivation, she still manages to create a convincingly multidimensional characterization in what is — let's face it — the only part in the whole movie the writers actually made a genuinely conflicted character. The rest of it is a routine indie for the day, not especially bad but not the gripping gangster/crime/police procedural movie the story had every right to be, either.

... That's because the policemen are shown sitting around what appear to be card tables at the precinct and only spring into action when a crime occurs. Did the city planners perhaps get the fire department confused with the police department? Are there firemen wandering around in cars looking for fires? But I digress.

There is really nothing wrong with the structure of this film. A man - one of the criminal element - is fatally shot and as the police get there they urge him to say who did it before he dies. His last word is "Nolan", who is a mobster and the owner of a well known nightclub. Nolan claims he has been at the club all night, but a plain clothes policeman, Mack McCue, has been at the club all night and says he saw Nolan leave and come back. Well, I guess in this film the detectives have it better than the uniformed officers because rather than sitting around the precinct they get to sit around bars.

Well, all of a sudden a very pretty girl takes a shine to McCue. Doesn't he think it odd that he, an average Joe AND the star witness in the case against Nolan, is suddenly being hit on by such a classy gal who lives in a penthouse apartment with no visible means of support? Nope. He eats up the attention when the girl is just trying to get Mack in one place long enough that Nolan's mob can kill him! Meanwhile, McCue's partner, Bob Larkin, is trying to compete for the girl too. Too bad, she doesn't want to kill him, thus he never has a chance.

Well a fight breaks out between the detectives over the girl, allowing a perp to escape, and the pair are busted down to the riot squad, the existence of which never comes up again in the entire film.

In the meantime there is a murder trial, the kidnapping of the judge's daughter, the attempt to try to get information out of gun moll Lil before it is too late. Then there is Lil's feisty maid who looks out for herself and seems to know who butters her bread. I thought she was a great touch.

Like I said earlier, the problem here is just a lack of talent in everything but the writing department. Get some better direction and some better known actors - the best known one is Madge Bellamy as Lil who ironically is best known as playing a zombie the year before - and you might have something that rises to a 7/10. Maybe I'm an easy grader because I'm a sucker for these low budget crime dramas. What they lack in enthusiasm and art design they make up for in goofy plot twists and goofier acting. I'd say give it a try. It is not boring if you are accustomed to films from the 1930's.

I have rarely seen a Mayfair feature, or even Grand National or Chesterfield, the worst productions, or may I say, the cheapest of the Hollywood Poverty Row. The result with this movie is not that bad at all. I tried it without great expectations and I was right, but I don't regret it. For this period, I have seen better in the cops vs gangsters scheme. I don't know the director either. The copy I saw was excellent and that helps a lot to appreciate it. It's still wonderful to see such rare and old films being saved in 2024 in the vaults. Thanks I guess because of the TV channels. Forget the story which offers nothing special, nothing new.

"Riot Squad" is a film I simply couldn't finish--so I'll tell you this up front. I want to be honest about this. It was because the film was just so incredibly awful. The script was duller than dust, the actors as charismatic as corpses and the whole thing looked like it was made on a budget of $7. It's a film so bad that not only would Monogram Studios have been embarrassed to make it but PRC! It's just slow, tedious and bad. Nothing stood out in a positive way about my watching the film and I can easily understand how the film has slipped into the public domain. If you are a big masochist, it's currently posted on YouTube but I wonder who would want to subject themselves to this thing?!