) begin a dogged but convincingly realistic investigation that twists, turns and dead-ends before they finally get their man. Martin, new partner Leo Larsen ( Bruce Dern ) and fellow plain-clothesman James Larrimore ( Louis Gossett Jr. Stuart Rosenberg produced and directed the movie it premiered on December 20, 1973.ĭour plain-clothes cop Jake Martin (Matthau) responds to a brutal massacre of all aboard a Muni bus and is shocked to find his partner amongst the victims. For the movie San Francisco replaced the novel's Stockholm setting but this is a different side of San Francisco, the seedy side, a world of gritty neighborhoods, licentious clubs, pimps, prostitutes, gays and psychos. The script was based on a novel by the Swedish husband and wife team Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall in which the protagonist was a humorless cop once given a phono record by a wag of a laughter-filled English 1920s music-hall comedic song called 'The Laughing Policeman'. In the early 1970s Walter Matthau, at that time perhaps best known as a lovable grouch in a series of comedies, reversed character and reeled off three crime movies in a row including The Laughing Policeman.
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