Busting

Busting is a 1974 film directed by Peter Hyams in his theatrical directorial debut, starring Elliott Gould and Robert Blake as Los Angeles police detectives. It was the main inspiration for the cop series Starsky & Hutch, which premiered in 1975 and, as in this film, also featured Antonio Fargas.

Busting
Film poster
Directed byPeter Hyams
Produced byRobert Chartoff
Irwin Winkler
Written byPeter Hyams
StarringElliott Gould
Robert Blake
Allen Garfield
Antonio Fargas
Sid Haig
Michael Lerner
Music byBilly Goldenberg
CinematographyEarl Rath
Edited byJames Mitchell
Production
company
Release date
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot summary

Keneely and Farrell are detectives with the LAPD vice squad. Although they show great talent for breaking up prostitution and drug rings, many of these enterprises are protected by crime boss Carl Rizzo, who exerts his influence throughout the city and the department. Evidence is altered before trial, colleagues refuse to help with basic policework, and the detectives are pushed to pursue other cases—mostly stakeouts on gay bars and public lavatories. After personally confronting Rizzo, Keneely and Farrell are brutally beaten while investigating one of his prostitutes. Frustrated but without any legal options, they resort to harassing Rizzo and his establishments, warding off customers and following his family around the city. Soon, Rizzo is rushed to the hospital for a heart condition. Realizing that he also used a medical emergency as an alibi during a previous drug sale, Keneely and Farrell head to the hospital and discover that drugs are trading hands there, hidden in flower pots. Rizzo escapes in an ambulance, while Keneely and Farrell make chase in another. The chase ends when both ambulances crash; although Keneely holds Rizzo at gunpoint, Rizzo laughs that the evidence against him is circumstantial—and, at most, will result in a light sentence.

The film ends on a freeze-frame of Keneely's face as Rizzo dares him to shoot. In a voice-over, Keneely applies to an employment agency, claiming that he doesn't know why he left his job at the LAPD—finally concluding that he "needed a change."

Cast

Production

Robert Chartoff wanted to make another film about vice cops after The New Centurions.[2][3]

They hired Peter Hyams to write and direct one off the back of the success of his TV movie, Goodnight, My Love. "I’d made a TV movie of the week that people had liked, and people started coming after me," he recalled. "The producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler came to me and said they wanted to do a film about vice cops. I said okay, and spent about six months researching it."[4]

Hyams later said "like a journalist, I went around to New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles and spoke with hookers, pimps, strippers and cops and DAs. Every episode in the film was true."[5]

Elliott Gould was offered the lead role after Hyams saw him on The Dick Cavett Show.[6]

In February 1973 Ron Leibman was cast as Gould's partner.[7] However he was soon fired. Hyams says, "It turned out the contrast between Ron and Elliott Gould was not the same contrast between Robert Blake and Elliott, so it was suggested we go with Robert and I listened."[8] Gould says that while he respected Leibman as an actor it was he who suggested Leibman be replaced. “I just had a sense that I don’t know if he’s the right partner for me."[6]

Filming started in February 1973.[9] The film was shot over 35 days.[8]

"United Artists was a dream studio," said Hyams. "Once they thought the script and the people making the film were good, they really didn't intrude. They were very encouraging, and fabulous for filmmakers."[8]

Reception

The film was not a popular success.[5]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "It's not great but it's a cool, intelligent variation on a kind of movie that by this time can be most easily identified by the license numbers on the cars in its chase sequences ... Mr. Hyams, who wrote and directed 'Busting,' brings off something of a feat by making a contemporary cop film that is tough without exploiting the sort of right-wing cynicism that tells us all to go out and buy our own guns."[10] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2 stars out of 4 and wrote that the disillusionment of the two main characters "is hardly made significant to us," as "the script fails to give either Gould or Blake an opportunity to establish their personal history. Here we have two actors who are strongly identified as rebellious types, and yet the script never once permits them to explain their motivation to become police officers."[11] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a confused, compromised and clumsy concoction of unmitigated vulgarity" and "a total shambles," with "a couple of well-staged vehicle chases" among the film's few bright spots.[12] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times slammed the film as "an abomination through and through. It may earn the distinction of insulting both the Police Department and the homosexual citizenry of Los Angeles equally." Thomas explained that "the film's humor is burlesque-based rather than satirical, which means that the unthinking and the bigoted are invited to laugh at some of the most oppressed and persecuted segments of an all-too-hypocritical and ignorant society."[13]

In a 1977 interview, Blake called Busting a mistake and did not appear in another theatrical release for six years.[14]

Controversy

The film was criticized for homophobia on the grounds of its depictions of gay characters and the attitudes of the lead characters towards them.[15] In an essay for The New York Times, journalist and gay rights activist Arthur Bell condemned the film for derogatory language used by characters to describe homosexuals, as well as a scene in a gay bar that he called "exploitative, unreal, unfunny and ugly" for its presentation of gay stereotypes.[16] Hyams defended this on the ground it was accurate to the milieu depicted.[15]

References
  1. "At the movies." Chicago Tribune. January 20, 1974. Section 6, p. 17. "...opening Friday at the Woods Theater."
  2. Shoot-out Marks Grand Central's Hollywood Debut Thomas, Kevin. Los Angeles Times 26 Mar 1973: f1.
  3. Winkler, Irwin (2019). A Life in Movies: Stories from Fifty Years in Hollywood (Kindle ed.). Abrams Press. pp. 901–930/3917.
  4. "Directors Special: Peter Hyams Film by Film", Empire Magazine accessed 30 July 2014
  5. Interview with Peter Hyams by Luke Ford accessed 27 July 2014
  6. Hunter, Rob (December 17, 2015). "21 Things We Learned from Elliott Gould's Busting Commentary". Film School Rejects.
  7. MOVIE CALL SHEET: Leibman to Star in 'Busting' Murphy, Mary. Los Angeles Times 6 Feb 1973: f10.
  8. "Interview with Peter Hyams Part One". Money Into Light. August 2016.
  9. Dustin's a Rabbi Now: ALSO OPENING Dustin's a Rabbi Now HAIL, CAESAR! ALIVE AND WELL V' FOR VICE SELECTED SHORTS By A. H. WEILER. New York Times 18 Feb 1973: 179.
  10. Canby, Vincent (February 28, 1974). "Film: Breathing Life Into Cops and Robbers Style". The New York Times. 33.
  11. Siskel, Gene (January 28, 1974). "'Busting' blues". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 14.
  12. Murphy, Arthur D. (January 30, 1974). "Film Reviews: Busting". Variety. 13.
  13. Thomas, Kevin (February 6, 1974). "A Burlesque of the Vice Cop's Lot". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 10.
  14. The Robert Blake Interview (June 1977) Playboy Magazine
  15. Its Director Defends 'Busting': THE MOVIE OPENINGS Movie Mailbag About 'Busting' Hyams, Peter. New York Times 17 Mar 1974: 127.
  16. Bell, Arthur (March 3, 1974). "Why Do Homosexuals Want to Bust 'Busting'?". The New York Times. D11.
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