Movie review: ‘The Choirboys’

FloridaGator80

You can always find outstanding translations of a novel to the screen. Two of the best are “The Godfather” and “The Day of the Jackal” (click here to read my review). Sadly, you cannot avoid the other side of that coin: Poor representations on film of good or great novels. Let me jump right to one of the best examples of the worst translations to film: “The Choirboys.” It is a film about police officers and truly is a bottom-feeding example of how not to bring a novel to the big screen. “The Choirboys” can be used as a blueprint for how to do virtually everything wrong. Avoid this one if you can or avoid it at all costs if you enjoy the work of policeman-turned-novelist Joseph Wambaugh – and he fought to get his name erased from anything to do with the film.

‘The Choirboys’
(1977; rated R; 119 minutes; directed by Robert Aldrich; starring Charles Durning, Louis Gossett Jr. and Perry King)

WOW! THIS ONE STINKS … I MEAN, REALLY STINKS!

(NOTE: I first expanded this review on Sept. 9, 2014, and then again on July 21, 2016. On both occasions I added opinion and trivia and updated links. I further expanded the review, added opinion and trivia and updated links on May 28, 2018. I again expanded the review on July 16, 2024.)

It doesn’t take someone of the late Stephen Hawking’s intellect to know that books are for the most part better than films. It also doesn’t take a great detective to discover that this is because of the attention to detail and nuance a writer can spend describing over dozens of pages that have to be streamlined for the cameras to roll. Today, I’ll take a look at “The Choirboys” from 1977 as an especially sad example of this pathetic genre.

(CLICK here … for all my reviews of movies)
(CLICK here … for a chronological list of my reviews)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of ‘007’ movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of sports movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of war movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of Christmas movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of horror movies)

Joseph Wambaugh was a cop on the Los Angeles police force in the 1960s when he penned an outstanding novel about police life that was published in 1970 as “The New Centurions.” In 1975 his personal best (at least that’s my opinion) came out as “The Choirboys.” It’s a novel that he has since yet to better and director Robert Aldrich couldn’t bring to the screen in any form other than with simplistic, stereotypical and sophomoric form. If you’re looking to find out who dealt this stinkbomb, you’ll find that Aldrich is the skunk at this particular lawn party.

To speak in cop lingo in L.A. back in the day, Wambaugh wrote that a “choir practice” was a mostly group of young(er) cops getting together after work and blowing off steam. They were, according to Wambaugh, singing their personal songs through bad behavior. Of course, it all goes wrong in the end and all society’s foibles surface through these men. Too bad the producers of “The Choirboys” just tried to cash in on the 1970s anti-establishment theme (right, Mr. Aldrich?) and only managed to plop some algae at the bottom of the filmmaking pond instead of having the talent to tell the story as plotted by the author.

Still, the cast of “The Choirboys” is absolutely strong from Louis Gossett Jr. to Charles Durning to Burt Young to James Woods to Randy Quaid to Don Stroud and even a young Blair Brown, you’ll find ’em all here. What you won’t find is acting worth watching, much less the hackneyed stereotypes on which it draws.

Just take the opening credits scene with the stained-glass window breaking. It’s an obvious, ham-handed metaphor and unworthy of the material from which it was taken. Christopher Knopf is the credited screenwriter because Wambaugh was so incensed by the poor quality of the film that he was able to force the film company to remove his name from it, according to IMDb.com.

“The Choirboys” follows the lives of a group of Los Angeles police officers from a precinct night watch. They’re frustrated at work and depressed at home and with life in general. In the end, it all spins out into tragedy (according to the book). However, Aldrich had to blatantly change the ending to a “win” for the “Choirboys” and cap off a bad film with a stupid, predictable and “upbeat” ending with the anti-heroes overcoming the terrible bureaucrats.

Here’s a look at some the primary cast (I’m forced to since this is a review):

  • A two-time Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner and three-time nominee (not for this one), Durning is ostensibly the lead actor in this ensemble film. He plays “Herbert ‘Spermwhale’ Whalen,” who is nearing retirement and an ardent critic of any and all police administrators. In the film’s best turn, Durning is at his best here as the angry, easily agitated cop. However, it’s not enough to even nearly begin to save it. He has also done excellent work in “The Sting,” “Tootsie” and on TV’s “Evening Shade.” Durning, who died at 89 in 2012, was nominated in back-to-back years for “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “To Be or Not to Be” (which was also one of his Globe nominations). He won his Globe for the TV miniseries “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” and was also nominated for a Globe for the iconic “Dog Day Afternoon” with Al Pacino. Durning was also a five-time nominee for Primetime Emmy awards.

As for the next two officers, an Oscar winner (not for this one), Louis Gossett Jr. isn’t hitting any high notes here, as he plays “Calvin Motts,” who the partner of Clyde Kusatsu as “Francis Tanaguchi.” Both convey their characters’ cynicism and Gossett is good at going along with Kusatsu’s juvenile pranks, but, ultimately, you’d like to see better from each of them and it’s obvious that Aldrich managed to make sure they didn’t live up to their potential.

Most unfortunate as you get down in the cops’ batting order is that Perry King as “Baxter Slate;” Tim McIntire as “Roscoe Rules;” Chuck Sacci as “’Father’ Sartino;” and Don Stroud as “Sam Lyles” just do nothing for the film. Especially deficient here is Quaid, who plays the fumbling fool “Dean Proust” and Stephen Macht as “Spencer van Moot,” a laid-back officer that Macht plays the role as if “Spencer” had taken too many muscle relaxants and was not just an easy-going guy.

If you want better from each: King was in “The Lords of Flatbush;” McIntire was great in “The Gumball Rally” (click here for my review) and he died young at 41 of a heart attack in 1986; Stroud was in “The Buddy Holly Story” (click here to read my review) as well as “Murph the Surf” (click here to read my review); and Quaid was outstanding in “The Long Riders” (click here to read my review). I really can’t find anything I like featuring Macht and, thankfully, Sacci had only one more acting credit before ending his career and therefore spared all of us his lack of talent to act.

Young, who also was in “Murph the Surf” with Stroud, does good work as “Sgt. Scuzzi” from the vice department and a young Woods is energetic as “Harold Bloomguard.” Both Young and Woods have had prolific careers and Young has been in the “Rocky” franchise and Woods in “Casino.” Young died at 83 in 2023.

I believe one minor but still grave sin by the filmmakers was changing the names of a number of characters. Why? The film couldn’t be any worse and it just appears the names were changed just to be changed. It’s a common affliction with Hollywood, filmmaking and filmmakers. Check out the name changes in “North Dallas Forty” (click here for my review). Also, I didn’t flesh out the full names of characters such as “Sgt. Scuzzi” from Wambaugh’s novel because of the name change of so many others.

In the end, “The Choirboys,” if you are tortured to admit one glimmer of light for the film, it is that it is 1970s kitsch. Still, it is eminently crap and only worthy of scorn and you shouldn’t watch it. It’s not even good but you might get through it if you can buffer from being insulted. It was made on a budget of $6.5 million, according to Wiki.

“The Choirboys” had no chance in 1977 of being anywhere near the top of the U.S. box office – even if it had been good. The No. 1 film of that year was “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.” “The Choirboys” certainly didn’t crack the top 10 and even 10 years after the original posting of this review, I cannot find mention of its rank on either Box Office Mojo or The Numbers websites. Here are films from that year that I’ve reviewed:

Some additional cast and film notes (via IMDB.com):

  • Young’s birth name was Gerald Tommaso DeLouis.
  • Pro football star Joe Kapp plays a worker who beats up McIntire. He has also been in the original “The Longest Yard” and “Two-Minute Warning” (click here to read my review).
  • Woods was in three films that are adaptations of Wambaugh books: “The Choirboys,” “The Black Marble” and “The Onion Field.”
  • Barbara Rhoades, who wonderful in TV’s “Soap” and breezily sweet in “The Goodbye Girl,” plays the token female “Officer Hadley” but don’t hold it against her.
  • Actor Walter McGinn to portray a desk sergeant and appearing throughout the film when he was killed in a vehicle crash just days into filming. He was replaced by Charles Haid, who went on to a much better role in “Hill Street Blues.”
  • “The Choirboys” is number 93 on a list of the best 100 crime novels of all time. I’d say the film “The Choirboys” easily makes the worst 10 crime films.
  • Finally and directly from IMDB.com: “Author Joseph Wambaugh disowned, disavowed, and de-credited himself from this adaptation of his book ‘The Choirboys.’ Wambaugh was so incensed with this adaptation of his book, considering it to be such a poor adaption, that he sued the production, and was successful in having his name removed from the film’s credits.”

© Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples,
©2014, ©2016, ©2018, ©2024
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without
express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner
is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that
full and clear credit is given to Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples
with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Unknown's avatar

Published by FloridaGator80

Leave a Reply