Director Don Siegels editorial chops are well in evidence as he opens The Line-Up with a brilliantly montaged chaotic scene at the San Francisco Pier. Well paced with two quirky villains the film is a sleek stripped down cops and robbers that purrs smoothly with a chilling violence from start to finish.Out of towner thugs Julian (Robert Keith) and Dancer (Eli Wallach arrive in San Francisco to collect a shipment of heroin from various unsuspecting sources. Things get ugly with the volatile Dancer during transfers and murder ensues. More complications ensue when they cannot account for the entire shipment.The Line-Up is an impressive piece of film craftsmanship by Director Don Siegel. Making the most of the San Francisco backdrop he covers a lot of ground in no nonsense detail with the twisted Julian and psycho Dancer as our tour guides to the famous city as well as cold blooded mayhem. Keith and in particular Wallach effectively convey their warped take on life in economical terms with few words that allows the chase to maintain its healthy stride. Building his story to a fevered pitch through judicious editing he saves the best for last in this film where the pace never wavers and done brilliantly in under 90 minutes compared to revered hacks like Mann and Tarantino who cannot get it right in over two hours. Along with his Body Snatchers a masterwork of minimalist film making.

Dear Don Seigel, your noir flick The Lineup works both as a police as well as a thieves procedural. The film begins with a bang as a car crashes into a policeman and then the driver crashes the car into a post. The police uncover a plot where heroin is placed in idols/curios brought home by unsuspecting tourists. Then the action shifts to Wallach and his mentor who arrive in town to recover the heroin from the tourists. I like the way you shot Eli Wallach's introduction scene with a dolly out of him reading a book about English grammar in a plane. But his role was a bit hard to digest. I mean why would they send a psycho like him to collect all the drugs? But it is all good far fetched entertainment. His creepy misogynistic mentor. Their alcoholic driver. The lonely housewife who falls for Wallach. The writer (Sterling Silliphant) really packed it in despite the movie's short length (82 minutes). The film mostly uses real life locations around San Francisco. I did not like the choice of camera angles during some of the tense moments like when Wallach threatens the Chinese servant at a house where he goes to recover the heroin. But the long car chase towards the end is worthy of a big budget film. Overall, a nice little noir, Don. Best Regards, Pimpin. (7/10)

This unspectacular cops and robbers chase through the streets of San Francisco sees the City's Finest hot (actually more lukewarm) on the trail of a network of heroin traffickers, finally cornering them on the unfinished Embarcadero Freeway, still under construction in 1958. To its credit the film (based on an early television series) neatly incorporates several Bay Area locations into the plot, but the style is as dated as the gray hats and suits worn by the uncharismatic paragons of law and order in their unblinking pursuit of evidence. The villains, thankfully, are given more attention, making an attractive assortment of psychopaths and social misfits.

Tightly scripted, excitingly staged, and brilliantly acted by Eli Wallach, this is a real sleeper. It could have been just another slice of thick-ear on the order of the Dragnet movie (1954). But thanks to writer Stirling Silliphant, director Don Siegel, and actor Wallach, The Lineup stands as one of the best crime films of the decade.Someone in production made a key decision to shoot the film entirely on location in San Francisco, and rarely have locations been used more imaginatively then here, from dockside to Nob Hill to the streets and freeways, plus lively entertainment spots. The producers of 1968's Bullit must have viewed this little back-and-whiter several times over, especially the car chase.Colorless detectives Warner Anderson and Emile Meyer (standing in for Tom Tully of the TV series of the same name) are chasing down psychopathic hit-man Wallach and mentor Robert Keith, who in turn are chasing down bags of smuggled narcotics. Dancer (Wallach) is simply chilling. You never know when that dead-pan stare will turn homicidal, even with little kids. Good thing his sidekick, the literary-inclined Julian (Keith), is there as a restraining force, otherwise the city might be seriously de-populated. Cult director Siegel keeps things moving without let-up, and even the forces of law and order are kept from stalling the action. My favorite scene is where Dancer goes slowly bonkers at the uncooperative Japanese doll. Watch his restrained courtship manners with the lonely mother (Mary La Roche) come unraveled as he reverts to psychopathic form, while mother and daughter huddle in mounting panic at the man they so trustingly brought home. It's a riveting scene in a film filled with them.The Line Up is another of those unheralded, minor gems that has stood the test of time, unlike so many of the big-budget cadavers of that year or any year.