During the 1950's there were two Police series that rose to the top. DRAGNET and THE LINEUP were both solid Police procedurals that showed how the everyday life of a cop was. The LINEUP ran between 1954 and 1960 with a total of 200 episodes produced. The leads were played by Tom Tully and Warner Anderson as a pair of San Francisco police detectives. This particular episode is the first episode of the series.
There has been a late night break-in at a small San Francisco gun shop. Half a dozen handguns including a very distinctive German Luger are stolen. Police detectives Tom Tully and Warner Anderson draw the case. A witness (Fred Sherman) gives the detectives a description of the four young men he saw doing the smash and grab.
Several days later a man is held up and beaten, before having his businesses' take for the day grabbed. Then there is a hold up at a bar. The description matches each time, four masked young men with guns.
The police catch a break when the young punks step up their game. They hit a bar at closing for the take. They also help themselves to 40 plus cases of booze. A witness happened to see the plate on the rented truck they used. The police back-track the plates and soon come up with a suspect (Paul Burke).
The detectives grab up Burke and lean into him with some solid third degree. The punk coughs up an address. The police surround the apartment building and then hit the suspect's apartment with guns drawn. Inside they find the other three young thugs (Joe Turkel, Robert Cole and Bill Walker). Their idea of a life of crime comes to a rather sudden stop.
As this is the first episode, the cast and crew had not quite found their groove. There are a couple of stumbles, plot and acting wise. These would soon be ironed out and the series would go on to be a big hit. It is still an entertaining bit of television.
The director of this episode was long-time b-feature and television man, Thomas Carr. Carr started out on low-budget westerns for Republic Pictures. He then made the switch to television on shows such as THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, RAWHIDE, RICHARD DIAMOND, TRACKDOWN and WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE.
The d of p was Nicolas Musuraca. Musuraca is well known to film noir fans as the cinematographer of THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE, CAT PEOPLE, GHOST SHIP, DEADLINE AT DAWN, THE LOCKET, WHERE DANGER LIVES, BLOOD ON THE MOON, THE WOMAN ON PIER 13. ROADBLOCK, THE HITCH-HIKER, THE BLUE GARDENIA, SPLIT SECOND and (of course) OUT OF THE PAST.
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