Good start, but then it gets ruined

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Arnold Laven's VICE SQUAD is a 1953 "police procedural" B that follows LA police chief Edward G. Robinson around for a day and he sees it all: a patrolman shot, a marriage bunco, pickpockets, an "escort service", a bank heist, police snitches, and other flotsam and jetsam with some harmless insanity and adultery thrown in for good measure. It's all in a day's work for the chief, a no-nonsense man with a kind side (reminiscent of Robinson's "Asa Keyes" only less verbose) who gives everything from misdemeanors to murder raps the attention they merit and even manages to squeeze in an appearance on a TV talk show (cut short, of course, when he finds out the cop died). He's got time for everyone and always gets his man but the methods the police use would cause rioting in the streets today. Oh well, the ends justify the means and it's all for a good cause at the end of this day. Actors like Eddie G., Barbara Stanwyck, and a host of others always did their professional best in these kinds of '50s B's which makes them a pleasure to watch even if the movies themselves aren't so hot. This one's not bad with the LA locations and unsung character actors (milquetoast Porter Hall, sinister Lee Van Cleef, sweaty Adam Williams, and an uncredited Percy Helton) all helping to raise it a notch above the routine. The billed-above-the-title co-star Paulette Goddard didn't hurt, either, and makes the most of her brief scenes. She's a sassy "escort operator" in sunglasses and mink that was probably based on "Hollywood Madam" Brenda Allen, in the news at the time for testifying before a Senate subcommittee hearing on police corruption in LA. Those hearings became the basis for William McGiver's THE BIG HEAT, which was made the same year and, in fact, VICE SQUAD seems like a "good cop/bad cop" counterpoint to Fritz Lang's brutal noir.

When a police officer is shot and killed after apprehending a suspect in a car theft, all hell breaks loose in the Los Angeles police department. Commander Edward G. Robinson is hellbent on apprehending the killer, and finds that the one key witness (Porter Hall) won't talk. He is under the advisement of his attorney to keep his mouth shut, but it is clear to Robinson that Hall is hiding something. That something is a blonde mistress which the portly Hall fears that a revelation of will end up being revealed to his unseen wife. In the meantime, Robinson also utilizes a local madam (Paulette Goddard) for clues as to the identity of the people involved in this case, while also investigating the claim of an aging conman that a Beverly Hills bank is about to be held up.Poor Hall can't get a break. When his shady lawyer gets him off on a rift, Robinson has him accused of being a masher. Later, he's a public drunk, and more charges follow suit in Robinson's efforts to keep Hall detained. He knows that once Hall and his mistress (Joan Vohs) come upon each other, he'll get Hall to co-operate, and the way he goes about this is very clever. There's a very amusing sequence with Vohs, a fur model, being escorted away from work after modeling a fur for a client where the law-abiding police officer grabs the stoll off of her to hand back to the department store supervisor. Another amusing sequence has Goddard (basically underused but amusing in her few scenes) being taken in by the police while interviewing a "client". She has a very amusing exchange with Robinson in regards to "pick-ups", and you can see that Robinson, the victim in this wisecrack, is very amused by it.Yet, as light-hearted as Robinson's character is, he ain't no sap, and when he does come across the man he believes to be the cop killer, he leaves no detail unexposed as he reveals what will happen to any cop killer as they head to the electric chair. His tongue may be in his cheek as he deals with getting the information he needs from witnesses, but when it comes to protecting his own, he is very serious. K.T. Stevens has little to do as his devoted secretary, but having had an interesting film career up to this time, I thought that it was very important to mention her, as she receives third billing. Unbilled Percy Helton is also memorable as a paranoid visitor to the precinct who has a fear of television. Several great shots of mid 1950's Los Angeles locations (going from downtown to Beverly Hills to Santa Monica Beach) give it a period look that adds to the reality of the drama.

An unsuspecting man, Jack Hartrampf, the owner of a funeral parlor, is seen coming out of a tryst with a young woman. Little prepares him for watching from the shadows as two criminals kill a policeman who discovered the pair were up to no good. Jack is of two minds, on the one hand it is his civil duty to report what he saw, on the other, he is a married man who cannot be involved in a scandal. He is taken as a witness, anyhow.At the police station the day is starting for Capt. Barnaby, a hard working man facing another tough day at the center of all sorts of police matters needing his attention. The death of one of his men hurts Barmaby as well as enrages him. He knows Jack Hartrampf saw exactly what happened, but he cannot make the man go out of his way to help. With the help of his highly paid lawyer, Hartrampf is released, but Barnaby has a way to get him back as a material witness.Capt. Barnaby hears from a man being held at the station about a possible robbery at a bank. The criminal has heard on the street this piece of information, which he uses to get out of detention. Barnaby's life is further complicated when Mona Ross, the owner of a "escort service" knows one of the potential bank robbers, one Al Barkis. He uses his leverage in keeping two of her girls to get the woman to cooperate."Vice Squad" the MGM release was one of the better B type films of the era, something that was the case of releases that were produces as fillers as double features. Arnold Laven directed this crime drama set in the Los Angeles of the time. The screenplay is by Lawrence Roman, an adaptation of the novel "Harness Bull" written by Leslie White.At the time the great Edward G. Robinson was perhaps not the bright star of his early career, but he kept making movies which he made better by his intelligent approach that was his hallmark. He was also a marked man in the era of the Hollywood 'witch hunt'. Mr. Robinson is a pleasure to watch in "Vice Squad". Here he plays a good man, a far cry for this start in the cinema. He carries the film on the strength of his performance. There are things that will appear as politically incorrect in the way Barnaby torments the poor milquetoast of Hartrampf, something that was not an issue at the time when the film was made. His methods might not have gone according to the book, but he got the results expected of his rank.Paulette Goddard has the second billing as Mona Ross. Her role is a small one, but she is a welcome presence in the story. The supporting players enhance the picture, especially Porter Hall as Hartrampf. Edward Binns and Lee Van Cleef are the criminals at the heart of the plot; both men give good performances.Joseph Biroc, a veteran cinematographer gives us a glimpse of different parts of Los Angeles as it looked in those years. The musical score is credited to Herschel Burke Gilbert. "Vice Squad" is one of the best films of the genre thanks to Arnold Laven inspired direction.

Veteran TV series director and producer (The Rifleman, Law of the Plainsman, Gunsmoke...) Arnold Laven give to the USA fifties cinema story the first movie showing clearly a call girls house activity and that is why this picture will remain in the spectator mind. The madam is a mature Paulette Goddard at may be one of his best roles on the screen. Edward G. Robinson plays with his usual professionalism police officer Captain Barnaby. Good supporting actors, including Italian born Lee Van Cleef much before meet Sergio Leone and his famous spaghetti-western series.