1958 film
Cop Hater is a 1958 American crime film noir police procedural film based on the 1956 novel Cop Hater written by Ed McBain, the first in a series of books about the 87th Precinct in New York City. The film was produced and directed by William Berke, written by Henry Kane and stars Robert Loggia and Gerald O'Loughlin.[1]
Plot
During an intense summer heat wave in New York City, two cops are murdered and the detectives of the 87th Precinct must find the killer. Steve Carella and Mike Maguire are the lead investigators on the case, but they cannot make any progress and their work is hampered by the interference of reporter Hank Miller. The two cops try to keep their personal lives separate from their work to no avail. When Maguire is shot and killed, Carella must comfort his partner's sexpot wife Alice and then gets drunk with Hank, inadvertently revealing his suspicions about the case and placing his girlfriend Teddy, a deaf-mute author, in jeopardy. When a hood arrives at Teddy's apartment, Carella overpowers him and forces a confession. The man killed all of the cops but Maguire had been the intended victim all along, as his wife had wanted him eliminated.
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Howard Thompson wrote:
The most effective thing about this rather routine, makeshift little melodrama is the abundance of comparatively fresh faces. In this respectably low-budget entry, filmed locally, the flavor, drive and tension of Ed McBain's crackling detective novel are all but gone. Henry Kane, the scenarist, tries to mirror the atmosphere of a metropolitan precinct headquarters, but the inept direction of William Berke, who also produced, synthetically flattens the plot, even with its original jolting denouement. Robert Loggia, Gerald O'Loughlin, Shirley Ballard and the others, excluding Russell Hardie, are quite self-conscious, for some reason. Hence so is the picture itself.[2]
