Rogue Cop (1954)

Load of rubbish!!

Absolutely Brilliant!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

While this film does not have every one of the usual trademarks of Film Noir, it is very much a Noir-style film. Like true Noir, Robert Taylor is not a typical cop but one on the take from the mob. The problem is that these thugs are now pressuring him to make his brother, another cop, refuse to identify a petty thug who murdered someone. The problem is that while Taylor isn't above lying or cheating, his brother (Steve Forrest) is a decent guy and won't play along with the crooks. So Taylor is stuck--should he obey his masters who have bought and paid for him or should he remain loyal to his brother? This makes for a great dilemma and also allows Taylor to play one of his grittier and more rugged roles (something I really appreciated after all the "pretty boy" roles of the 1930s and early 40s). I particularly liked watching Taylor in an all-out brawl with Alan Hale, Jr., as Taylor ending up beating him with a brutal punch to the throat! Now THAT'S what you expect in Noir! Overall, this film is well made and interesting. About the only negative is one brief scene with Janet Leigh when Taylor kisses her--it just doesn't ring true. Still, this one's a keeper and well worth your time.

In "Rogue Cop" (1954) Robert Taylor did great.Dev. Sgt. Chris Kelvaney (Robert Taylor) has a younger brother Eddie (Steve Forrest) who is a street cop. Eddie can identify a murderer he saw run from the scene of the crime.Big brother Chris, who is "on the take", is contacted by gangster Dan Beaumonte (George Raft, of course) with bribery in mind. He's willing to pay Eddie $15,000 if he changes his testimony. Beaumonte's afraid the murderer (Vince Edwards) knows too much. He might sing and put them all in "Sing-Sing". Dishonest Chris wants him to take it for safety's sake. Eddie isn't his brother so his testimony stands.Beaumonte has Eddie killed thus waking Chris up to a sad reality. After the death of his brother, Chris swears revenge and starts to track down his brother's killers. He has to get them out in the open and starts laying the groundwork. But Beaumonte wants to stop him and anyone he asks for help. Needless to say that may leave allot of excess bodies lying around...It also may not be as easy as he'd like it to be.Other cast members include: Janet Leigh as Karen Stephanson (Eddie's fiancée); Anne Francis as Nancy Corlane (Beaumonte's alcoholic ex-girl); Robert Ellenstein as Det. Sidney Y. Myers (Bob does a great job as Chris's partner who is an honest cop); Vince Edwards as murderer Joey Langley (later "Ben Casey" of TV fame 1961-66); Olive Carey as Selma (Chris's connection to snitches) (wife of Harry Sr., mother of Harry Jr. and well-known character actress in her own right.)

With some of the roles he played as he got older, it's hard to believe that at one time MGM was worried about a powder puff image that Robert Taylor had in his youth.Seeing Taylor as Chris Kelvaney in Rogue Cop is like seeing a whole different player than Armand in Camille. But it's the same guy and a film like Rogue Cop brings out the maturity and depth Taylor had as an artist as well as a person.Taylor is a long time big city cop on the take to gangland boss George Raft. He's risen pretty high in the department and could go farther. He's a pretty cynical dude, in his chosen field he's seen a lot of the worst that people can be.But he's got a kid brother played by Steve Forrest who's a straight arrow. He doesn't know about his brother and he gets himself killed because he crosses Raft in the performance of his duty. Forrest's death gives Taylor a mission, he'll take Raft down no matter what it costs.There are two prominent female roles, Janet Leigh as Forrest's girl friend who later develops an interest in Taylor and Anne Francis as Raft's moll who turns against him. Both women hold their own in what is a male dominated film. Francis borrows quite a bit from Gloria Grahame and her performance in The Big Heat. Also both Rogue Cop and The Big Heat have blackmail of a syndicate boss as the underpinning of the story.Raft of course is in his element as a gangland boss. In the rest of the cast there's a very nice performance by Robert Ellenstein as Taylor's honest partner. The final shootout with Raft and company with the two of them is one of the best and most realistic ever staged in a film.For Robert Taylor fans, Rogue Cop is an absolute must and people who don't think much of Taylor as player will be jolted at how well he does in this film.

By 1954, the noir cycle had already sounded most of its dissonant themes. Audiences had seen the crooked cop with the straight-arrow younger brother (The Man Who Cheated Himself); the shantoozie with a past (Gilda, Dead Reckoning, The Last Crooked Mile); the slick mobster beyond the reach of the law with his alcoholic, trophy mistress (Key Largo, Railroaded,The Big Heat); the street-savvy old jane who passes on scuttlebutt for a price (Pickup on South Street). But, as Roy Rowland's Rogue Cop demonstrates, there were still changes to be rung on those themes, jazzed up with fresh casting and pithy writing.Here, the cop gone sour isn't a homicidal brute like Edmond O'Brien in the same year's Shield For Murder (both movies were adapted from books by William McGivern, as was Fritz Lang's The Big Heat). He's dapper, laid-back Robert Taylor, known by his `brothers' on the force to be on the take but given a wide berth despite it (it's the thin blue line's equivalent of omertà). When his younger brother Steve Forrest, also a policeman, identifies a connected hit-man, Taylor receives a summons from his paymaster, crime boss George Raft. Either Forrest recants his testimony, in return for a $15-grand payoff, or he'll be killed (the accused knows too much and might sing if convicted). Upon delivering the ultimatum, Taylor gets rebuffed by Forrest; he then tries to blackmail his brother's fiancée Janet Leigh, a nightclub singer, into trying to change his mind. Taylor doesn't really want Forrest to go bad, he just doesn't want him dead.But Raft plays tougher than Taylor imagines. Lulling Taylor into thinking he still has time, Raft has Forrest shot in the back. And so the worm turns: Using both Leigh and Raft's discarded moll Anne Francis as his allies, Taylor swears vengeance....Crisply photographed by John Seitz, Rogue Cop burrows snugly into its rotten urban core – a city of dreadful night. With its large and aptly chosen cast, it nonetheless rests squarely on the shoulders of its central character, Taylor, who comes through with the performance of his career. At age 42, he passes muster as a burnt-out cop who's sold out for easy money – in this urban jungle, corruption is just another perk passed up only by fools -- but still has the wits and the will to spring a few surprises when cornered. There's plenty of brutal, even sadistic, action, but Rogue Cop is less an action picture than a character study that Taylor, somewhat surprisingly, manages to pull off. With its siblings The Big Heat and Shield For Murder, Rogue Cop makes up a grim tryptich of big-town America in the mid-20th century.