Brooklyn

 

 (imdb)

THE CASE AGAINST BROOKLYN-1958-A rookie cop (Darren McGavin) goes undercover to help break the borough's illegal gambling racket protected by some corrupt police officers. He romances a widow (Margret Hayes)) who's husband (Joe DeSantis) committed suicide. He runs afoul of thug henchman Rudi Franklin (Warren Stevens) who works for the big bosses (Nestor Paiva and Thomas B. Henry). Tragedy follows but he eventually succeeds. Emile Meyer is a police captain and Joe Turkel is another thug. 

This was the second film directed by Paul Wendkos after THE BURGLAR in 1957. He went on to make other films (GIDGET (1959) (and some sequels), BECAUSE THEY'RE YOUNG (1960) and THE METHISTO WALTZ (1971) but his major output was on TV.

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Pre-Super Reeves

TEAR GAS SQUAD-1940-Druggist Joe McCabe (pre-Superman George Reeves) captures gangster Rocks Dawson. Joe's brother is a nightclub singer named Tommy McCabe (Dennis Morgan) who impersonates a singing cop in his act. He really doesn't like policemen but manages to win over a woman, Jerry Sullivan (Gloria Dickson) who's whole male family are police officers (Edgar Buchanan plays one of them). John Payne (MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET) is Morrissey, another policeman who becomes a rival to Tommy for Jerry's affections. McCade joins the police training school (where future Perry White John Hamilton is the police commissioner) to impress Jerry. He becomes leader of the Police Glee Club but after punching out Morrissey he's drummed out of the force. When brother Joe is killed for revenge Tommy wants back in. When Morrisey is taken hostage by a gang tear gas comes into play...sort of. Tommy rescues Morrisey and together they arrest the gang. Tear gas really doesn't have much to do with it except maybe all the songs caused a lot of gas and tears?? Who knows? It just got my attention because Reeves was in it. Mary Gordon is Jerry's mother and Frank Wilcox and Ben Weldon (a future frequent guest villain on TV's Superman) have small roles.

Lead actress Gloria Dickson had a promising career hampered by alcoholism. In 1945 she died in a house fire at age 28,

Director Terry Morse also made BRITISH INTELLIGENCE (with Karloff), FOG ISLAND and UNKNOWN WORLD. He also edited many films.

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Taiwan

ANGEL FORCE-1991-Taiwan sends a government rescue team to free a hostage in Burma. A guy named Peter (Wilson Lam) assembles a team (including his female partner played by Moon Lee) to do the assignment. Strangely Peter gets shot up and his partner has to take over. There's a lot of shoot-outs, fights and a motorcycle chase though the print I saw was badly dubbed and edited. It's sometimes hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. It starts out as "cops vs gangsters" and switches to a jungle commando action film with some surprising violence. The story goes on too long with a lot of predictable twists. Yukari Oshima plays an arms dealer. Of the two directors credited one Shan Hua directed the crazy INFRA-MAN.

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