A drug bust goes wrong, and in the deadly aftermath a briefcase containing a can holding 2 pounds of uncut heroin gets lost. Teenagers Yale Wexler, Jonathan Haze and Steven Marlo find the briefcase but are unaware that among its contents is the heroin. They pawn the briefcase and use the money for a night at the bowling club. The next morning they read about the drug bust and the lost briefcase and put 2 and 2 together. They manage to find the can of 'facial powder' with the heroin and turn to local junkie Allen Kramer to find a buyer. But of course both the police and the mobsters are looking for the briefcase and the heroin. It's not long before the police find the briefcase and the mobsters find Kramer...This movie was made on a shoestring budget, and it shows. The movie feels quite raw at times, even amateurish, esp the acting is pretty wooden at times. But on the other hand, the script is full of great lines, and the movie flows rather well. There is an authoritarian voice-over narration that gives the movie a documentary-style feel, which works well here. And while many scenes look rushed, some key scenes are executed rather well with nice set-up's and room to breathe, including a scene where the guys look for the can of heroin on a garbage site, a harrowing account of a junkie going through withdrawal and the climax at an industrial complex.I don't think I'd ever heard of any of the actors in this movie before watching it. And aside from Kramer, who is quite convincing as a junkie, most of them are adequate at best... None of the actors seemed to have moved beyond these cheap B-features and/or moved on to TV, which is maybe for the best. Actors from that time with similar 'looks' as the main characters like Vince Edwards or John Cassavettes would've really lifted this movie up a notch or two.The real talent in this movie tho was behind the camera. Director Irvin Kerschner in his first movie would later direct 'Star Wars V - The Empire Strikes Back', it doesn't get much bigger than that! And DoP Haskell Wexler (brother of one of the 3 kids, Yale Wexler), also lensing his first feature-length movie here, would go on to win 2 Oscars for his cinematography in his long career, for 'Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf' and 'Bound For Glory'. Their work here is really great, considering the shoestring budget. All in all, this movie exceeded my expectations, but I was let down by the mediocre acting. Still a pretty confident recommendation. 7+/10

"Stakeout on Dope Street" is a decent film when it comes to the plot idea, but nothing, I mean NOTHING, makes the film particularly compelling. It should have been a lot more interesting than it was.The film begins with a very gritty shootout--one where two cops are shot as well as one of the criminals. However, in the process, a briefcase full of pure, uncut heroin is lost. And, shortly afterwords, three young men discover the drugs and decide to get rich selling it. Two of the guys have no problem with this--but the third gets cold feet because he's worried about creating addicts just like the guy they hired to sell the stuff. However, once the guys start selling, it's inevitable that the guys who lost it will come looking.... If you want to find out what's next, see the film.While the plot idea sounds interesting, this low-budget film never excited me--and several times I found myself nodding off during the movie. It's not a terrible film--just not a very interesting one. See it if you'd like, but you could do better.

(There are Spoilers) Very probably the first movie coming out of Hollywood that addressed the drug epidemic on the streets of America with both street level smartness and native intelligence, among dealers users and police, in just how illegal drugs, in this case heroin, is both marketed and sold to it's many hooked and desperate customers.A stakeout on Cole Street, known as Dope Street among the dealers and police, goes bad with one of the cops Sgt. Matthews, Matt Resnick, and the arrested drug pusher Jerome Lake, Charles Guasti, ending up shot and killed in the ensuing crossfire. Lake not being able to make his escape, in that he's handcuffed to the dead Sgt. Matthews, throws the briefcase loaded with the drugs, a two pound can of uncut and pure heroin, into the bushes. This happens just moments before Lake is gunned down by Sgt. Matthew's partner Officer Donahue (Slate Harlow), and the police back-up, who's also seriously wounded in the shootout.Lake's partners Mitch Swardurski & Lenny Potter, Herman Rudin & Phllip Mansour, unable to retrieve the drugs or the suitcase, with the initials J.R.L stenciled on it, flee leaving it in the nearby bushes where it's found the next day by grocery delivery boy Julian "Vas" Vaspucci, Jonathon Haze. At his fathers grocery store Vas together with his two friends Jim Bowers & Nick Raymond, Yale Wexler & Steven Mario, open the suitcase finding samples of womens cosmetics and a strange two pound can of white powder, the pure heroin.Keping the cosmetics, Jim gives them as a present to his girlfriend Kathy(Abby Dalton), the three young men throw the valuable heroin away in the garbage thinking that it's worthless powder. It's only later after selling the empty suitcase to a local pawnbroker Samuel Alber, Edward Schaaf, the trio realize, by seeing the story of the Dope or Cole Street shootout in the newspapers, that they threw away a fortune in illegal drugs!Finding the missing can in the city dump the three now would be drug dealers get in touch with a middle man, a local heroin junkie, Danny played by Allen Kramer in order to first authenticate, by him using it, the heroin and then sell it to his friends splitting the take with his three partners in crime. What goes completely over the heads of Vas Jim and Nick, as well as Danny, is that both the mob headed by gangster Mr. Fennel, Herschel Bernardi, as well as police are out looking for them and the heroin. And in their case it would be a lot better if the cops instead of Mr. Fennel's boys got to them first!Harrowing story of greed as well as stupidity on the part of the three young men with the can of pure heroin who were way over their heads and didn't realize it until it was almost too late. The naive trio think that they can get rich by not only selling death on the streets without the say so and approval of mobster Mr. Fennel, whom the heroin belongs to, but with the pursuing cops breathing down their necks who are out to avenge the murder of one of their own, Sgt. Matthews,over the missing drugs. Working almost as a team the police and Fennel Mob slowly track down the three by finding the suitcases where the heroin came from at Alber's pawnshop. It's then that the Mob tracks down Danny who not realizing he's the only heroin pusher in town because, with him having the missing heroin, he's the only one who has any smack, or heroin, to sell!Predictable, but very exciting, and by the numbers final as Vas Nick and a very reluctant Jim, whom Kathy talked out this this drug dealing insanity, end up on the wrong side of the law as well as in the gun-sights of Mr. Fennel's hit men Swardurski & Potter. The final scene in a deserted L.A power plant has you on the edge of your seat in hoping that Jim, who's the one with the can of heroin, gets away from the two Mr. Fennel hit-men before they finish him off for good. But at the same time also knowing that if Jim, as well as his friends Vas and Nick, end up alive he'll have to pay for that brief moment of insanity in thinking that dealing drugs is a swell way to get rich; rich off the sufferings and deaths of those that he sells the drugs to.

This is a surprisingly strong AIP feature, a first for Irvin Kershner as writer and director. Although stylistically it seems, at first sight, little more than an expanded DRAGNET episode in which you get to see the criminals' viewpoints, this largely no-name cast gives a bunch of decent performances with some well-written characters.The feature is about a group of rather clueless teenagers -- who appear to use all their off-screen time body building -- who discover a cannister of heroin. Neither hard core criminals nor saints, they want all the things that society says they should want, and are not choosy about how they go about getting it.The writing and direction are stronger than the acting, but the overall effect is quite striking. Definitely worth your time.