valdezben
You figure since streets of San Francisco, the untouchables, swat, Hawaii five-o, and the fugitive are all put on DVD the that San Francisco beat should also see the light of day hopefully. The movie "THE LINEUP" is a great movie seeing old school San Francisco and also included with the old cars seeing those old GM, FORDS, DODGE cars is really cool if their are two productions that should be on DVD are 1. SAN FRANCISCO BEAT TV SERIES 2. THE LINEUP MOVIE 1958 , i was able to get the movie poster at a collectors show last year i had heard that Highway Patrol with Broadrick Crawford might be coming to DVD sometime soon.
gordonl56
I managed to dig up a few of these great oldies. Here is a review of one of them.Warner Anderson and Tom Tully play a pair of San Francisco Police detectives in this 50's standard. The two are assigned to find who is behind a string of armed robberies. The bandits simply walk in, calmly stick a gun in the clerks face and ask for the cash. The victims are so frightened that not one of them can give the police an accurate description. The police catch a break though when a witness catches the plate number off the get-away car. They trace the car to a rental outfit. They then follow the leads to a less than sober woman who tells the detectives her new boyfriend had borrowed the car. This info leads them to a seedy rundown hotel. A talk with the desk clerk gets them a room number. A quick boot to the door and the detectives catch a man laying out the doings for a drug fix. As they are slapping the cuffs on the first suspect, the second shows up with the heroin. A gun is stuck in his face for a change as he is relieved of the drugs and his pistol. The two are drug addicts and the string of hold-ups were to feed the habit. This episode was directed by Felix Feist who did the noirs DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE, THE THREAT, TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY and THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS. A DRAGNET style police procedural with the added bonus of great location shooting.
petet109
I remember watching it when I was a kid. This show was the basis for all the later partner police stories such as Streets of San Francisco and others. I like Tom Tully and Warner Anderson together - kinda like Joe Friday and Frank Smith from Dragnet. This show provided a later rematch for these two actors - they worked together in the 1943 movie "Destination Tokyo" where Warner Anderson was an Officer and Tom Tully was the enlisted man. They kept this relationship in The Line-Up - the scariest part was in the opening credit when all of a sudden you see the car come up over the top of the hill and make a quick left turn - used to scare me to death. Looked like a 1949-1951 ford. I would like to see this show in reruns sometime.
JRabbit
This series is a nostalgic monument to Old San Francisco;i.e., before the development of high rise buildings. One can hear the old fog horns and feel the dampness as Inspector Grebb and the Lt. walk about in Top Coats and Fedoras. They also frequently use the old Police Call Boxes(dedicated phone lines on the street), painted blue of course. After all, portable two-way radios were still less than reliable. The series also makes use of the old Hall of Justice building on Kearney Street. This elaborate old building was torn down to make way for a new hotel. It is a very different city depicted in this series than was shown in "The Streets of San Francisco" or the Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood movies.
AD
