Of the books in the Martin Beck series, this and Roseanna are the best at describing a lengthy police investigation, one in which it seems as if no progress is being made. As I recall, the killer was an important businessman trying to cover up the long ago, extremely brutal murder of a young woman. The cop who was killed on the bus had taken up the case in what today we call 'a cold case file.' This version repeats a bit of this,but from there it veers off into San Francisco, homosexuals, a laughing Bruce Dern ~~in the book, 'The Laughing Policeman' is the title of an ancient phonograph record~~, and the bonding between two detectives, a theme worn to death in later movies.
Matthau is properly rumpled, grumpy and unsmiling, but he is not Beck, who is one of the finest characters created in modern detective fiction. As one reviewer notes, the film is a pale "Bullitt' and it is McQueen who could have given us the definitive Beck.
The solving of the case in the book was large part teamwork, which we don't see here, and a small part luck. The case hinged on the misidentification of a car....this would be too dull unless it were done on Law and Order....and the work it took to track down the owner years later.
The film is gritty and makes us work to connect the dots, but it does not hold a candle to the book. Oddly James Ellroy used the same massacre idea in LA Confidential and when time came to make the film version, Curtis Hanson got it right.
Matthau is properly rumpled, grumpy and unsmiling, but he is not Beck, who is one of the finest characters created in modern detective fiction. As one reviewer notes, the film is a pale "Bullitt' and it is McQueen who could have given us the definitive Beck.
The solving of the case in the book was large part teamwork, which we don't see here, and a small part luck. The case hinged on the misidentification of a car....this would be too dull unless it were done on Law and Order....and the work it took to track down the owner years later.
The film is gritty and makes us work to connect the dots, but it does not hold a candle to the book. Oddly James Ellroy used the same massacre idea in LA Confidential and when time came to make the film version, Curtis Hanson got it right.