Линия огня Линия разметки (1958)

1958 film by Don Siegel

The Lineup is a 1958 American film noir version of the police procedural television series of the same title that ran on CBS radio from 1950 until 1953, and on CBS television from 1954 until 1960. The film was directed by Don Siegel. It features a number of scenes shot on location in San Francisco during the late 1950s, including shots of the Embarcadero Freeway (then still under construction), the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, the War Memorial Opera House, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, and Sutro Baths.

An international drug smuggling racket plants heroin on unsuspecting American tourists traveling from Asia, so that the dope can pass through customs undetected. A psychopathic killer, Dancer, led by his mentor Julian, and their driver McLain then collect the contraband. Lt. Ben Guthrie leads the police hunt for the criminals. The head of the heroin ring is a person known only as "The Man". The story begins when an American tourist disembarking in San Francisco from a cruise ship returning from Hong Kong has his bag stolen by a porter, throwing the bag into a cab. As the cabbie takes off at high speed, he runs deadly on a police officer, still able to fire his gun at the fugitive. Cab driver is hit, crashes and dies. A police investigation discloses that the cab driver is a heroin addict, and attention is drawn to a heroin smuggling ring. Dancer and Julian have instructions to retrieve the heroin from the unsuspecting tourists and deliver it to a drop point at Sutro's Museum (a real San Francisco location until it burned down in 1966) where the bag containing the heroin is to be left inside an antique ship's binnacle. Dancer and Julian are instructed by their contact, Staples, that they must make the drop and be gone before 4:05 pm. Dancer kills three people along the way (the porter, a seaman demanding his share, and a suspicious chinese servant, refusing to hand out a drug container). But when it turns out that two of the tourists—Dorothy Bradshaw and her young daughter, Cynthia—had unknowingly disposed of the heroin, Dancer and Julian are in a bind; if they drop off the bag with a large portion of the heroin missing, their lives may be in danger. Dancer and Julian decide that instead of leaving the bag and departing the premises by 4:05, Dancer will stay, meet The Man and explain why the shipment is short. Dancer and Julian kidnap Dorothy and Cynthia and bring them to Sutro's so they can back up the story. Dancer should meet The Man. When Dancer meets The Man in the museum, it turns out that the mastermind is disabled and wheelchair bound. Dancer explains himself, and The Man has an unexpected reaction; he tells Dancer that "nobody ever sees me," and that because Dancer has seen him, he "is dead". The Man slaps Dancer across the face with the bag of heroin and Dancer, enraged, pushes The Man off a balcony, killing him. Meanwhile, the San Francisco police have spotted the getaway car with Julian, McLain, and the kidnapped Dorothy and Cynthia. When Dancer exits Sutro's, a high speed car chase ensues, filmed in the area of The Embarcadero. When the car becomes trapped at a barrier on the Embarcadero Freeway, Dancer first shoots his accomplice to death, holding the girl hostage, then tries to flee. He is shot by the police and falls down the bridge.

Varietys review called it a "moderately exciting melodrama" that spends too much time on the police procedural aspects. Time Out described it as "more brutal, sadistic and threatening" than The Killers. Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader called it "a major B movie by one of Hollywood's most accomplished craftsmen". The Lineup was preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in conjunction with Sony Pictures, in 1997.

The film contains the line, "When you live outside the law, you have to eliminate dishonesty," of which Jonathan Lethem writes that "Bob Dylan heard it , cleaned it up a little, and inserted it into 'Absolutely Sweet Marie'" (as "To live outside the law you must be honest. ").