Movie review: ‘Cops and Robbers’ (1973)

FloridaGator80
A promotional photo from the 1973 movie “Cops and Robbers.”

I’ve enjoyed reviewing films adapted from novels, but today I’m reviewing one that’s from the opposite direction: “Cops and Robbers” was written as an original screenplay by novelist Donald E. Westlake and then he expanded his screenplay into a novel. I guess that’s why “Cops and Robbers” as a film has all the clever devices that I enjoyed in the novel because what he made key in the screenplay was key in the novel. Here is a short-ish film at 89 minutes (very, very short by Quentin Tarantino standards), but it accomplishes much in that time.

‘Cops and Robbers’
(1973; 89 minutes; rated PG; directed by Aram Avakian and starring Cliff Gorman, Joseph Bologna and John P. Ryan)

LET’S HAVE COPS BE THE ROBBERS!

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on Oct. 23, 2026.)

Usually, I check out a film from a novel that I read to see the quality, or complete lack thereof, in the translation to the big screen. However, today I’m reviewing a film that found its screenplay turned into a novel – and, no, I don’t mean just a novelization to cash in on the movie, but one where the screenwriter is an accomplished novelist and turned his movie work into a novel.

“Cops and Robbers” stars Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna as two New York City cops who turn to crime to fund an early-retirement for each. The screenplay was written by Donald E. Westlake, who was an accomplished novelist and worked on many screenplays. In an unusual turn, the novel hit bookstands 10 months before the film was released. Usually, studios would put out a “novelization” of a big-budget film at the same time of the release of the movie.

In “Cops and Robbers,” you get two NYPD officers who are neighbors and they are living an OK suburban life with homes, a swimming pool and families in a high-density community and they commute to work together. Both are working-class and looking for more money for a better lifestyle. Well, one cop, Joseph Bologna as “Joe,” robs a liquor store and literally walks away into the night. After that, he tells his friend and neighbor “Tom,” played by Cliff Gorman, and both ultimately realize that pulling off a big heist would get them out of a dangerous job and, since they are NYPD officers, it gives them a big advantage in whatever crime they choose to accomplish.

So, what do they do? They go to the mob!

Gorman goes to a mobster’s house and asks what he would pay $2 million for them to steal. The gangster does some verbal jousting and finally tells Gorman about bearer bonds and that he would need to steal $10 million worth of them to earn the $2 million.

It’s how they accomplish the heist and get the payoff that offers the clever details that make the movie. Here are some of “Cops and Robbers’” neat twists:

  • First, after Gorman, who is in a disguise, meets with the mobster, some of the gang try to follow him to find out his true identity. As they follow him up an escalator from the subway, a uniformed cop (Bologna) holds up the line after Gorman has passed. Of course, the gangsters don’t realize at that moment that the two are together. By the time they get to the street, Gorman has disappeared, as has Bologna. Actually, I wonder why Gorman went to the meeting. He was disguised, but has distinctive eye features that no disguise could hide. Hmmm …
  • After deciding to rob a Wall Street brokerage during a tickertape parade for astronauts just back from space (the film is set in the early 1970s), they steal the bearer bonds, but then rip them up and throw them out a window as part of the parade celebration of a cascade of paper coming out of skyscraper windows. This idea is the key component to the whole robbery. They didn’t have to worry about anyone finding the stolen bonds: The bonds no longer exist and the crime is reported by all the media that $12 million was stolen. It’s the irony of the total reported, because the brokerage house executive robbed by the duo snagged $2 million for himself with no one the wiser, but the two crooked cops.
  • A promotional photo from the 1973 movie “Cops and Robbers.”

    For transportation, the duo uses patrol units … “borrowed” and then returned unnoticed from a police garage. Of course, both have uniforms (although Gorman is a plain-clothes detective) and fit both to their advantage, especially at the end when they make the pickup of the $2 million in Central Park in an area where only bicycles were allowed … but so were police cars.

The only weakness in the film is that neither Gorman or Bologna manage to elevate their character to being truly memorable. Both are solid, but they have good parts and huge screen time, but don’t knock it out of the park.

So, here’s my look at the top cast members:

  • A Tony award winner and nominee, Gorman does a workmanlike job as “Tom” but this isn’t among his best. However, he’s solid and doesn’t flub any scene and that’s a foundation stone effort in this kind of flick. I liked him in Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz” (click here for my review) and he was in “An Unmarried Woman” and “The Boys in the Band.” Gorman did a string of episodes of a variety of TV dramas and won a Tony for the Broadway version of “Lenny.” and he died at 65 in 2002 of leukemia.
  • An Oscar nominee (not for this one), Bologna gets pretty much the same marks as Gorman. His character is more volatile and expressive, but, like Gorman, he doesn’t manage to kick the character of “Joe” in high gear. Bologna was nominated for writing along with his wife and another writer for “Lovers and Other Strangers” and won a Primetime Emmy for writing along with his wife, Renée Taylor, for “Acts of Love and Other Comedies.” I say he did wonderful work in steamy comedy “Blame it on Rio” with Michael Caine in a movie that couldn’t be made today: Caine falls in love with Bologna’s teenaged daughter and it is totally R-rated. He was also in “Big Daddy” with Adam Sandler. Bologna died at 82 in 2017 of pancreatic cancer.
  • John P. Ryan plays Pasquale “Patsy” Aniello and he’s the mob boss who gets drawn into the cops’ scheme. Ryan has a little to work with and manages to do a better job than either of the headliners, even though he has much less screen time. His best scene is where he has to ask a bigger mob boss for the $2 million (he plans to kill the two cops and keep the bearer bonds, but it just doesn’t work out that way). He was in “The Right Stuff” as “Head of Program” (click here for my review) as well as “Hoffa” with Jack Nicholson and “The Missouri Breaks” with Marlon Brando and Nicholson and among the variety of TV show episodes on his resume, you’ll find “M*A*S*H” and “Kojak.” He died at 70 in 2007 of a stroke.

Westlake, who penned more than 100 works of fiction and non-fiction, wrote a tight screenplay in “Cops and Robbers” and it was his exceptional creativity with criminals, crimes and human nature that makes this one worth watching. In his writing career, I liked Westlake, who died at 78 in 2008 of a heart attack while on vacation in Mexico, for the “John Dortmunder” series of books about a longsuffering, hard-luck, but interesting and likable thief (check out “The Hot Rock” with Robert Redford as “Dortmunder” – click here for my review).

Since “Cops and Robbers” is just a minute shy of an hour-and-a-half, you won’t have to take up much time to watch it. I recommend it highly. After a bit of a slow start establishing the characters of “Tom” and “Joe,” it moves right along to its satisfying conclusion.

“Cops and Robbers” was outside the top 24 films at the U.S. box office for 1973, according to The Numbers website. Coming in first was the instant horror classic “The Exorcist” with $193 million in ticket sales; No. 2 was “The Sting” with Redford and Paul Newman with $159.6 million; and at No. 3 was “Papillon” with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman at $53.2 million. Here are the other films from 1973 that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Gorman’s birth name was Joel Joshua Goldberg; and John P. Ryan’s middle name was Patrick. Oh, BTW … John Ryan was the birth name of original “Hawaii Five-O” star Jack Lord, but it is John P. Ryan in this film.
  • Nino Ruggeri plays big crime boss “Mr. Joe” and had only six acting credits in a short-ish career from 1965 to 1974 and most were crime dramas, including “Cops and Robbers” and “Crazy Joe.” Ruggeri was also in “The Godfather,” but in an uncredited role.
  • Jess Osuna plays a “cop” and was in two of Redford’s best films: “All the President’s Men” (click here for my review) and “Three Days of the Condor” (click here for my review). Osuna had a slim resume of only 29 acting credits with the last in 2009 and he died at 81 in 2011. Osuna’s birth name was Jesus Anthony Osuna.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “In a long shot of traffic there is a truck emblazoned with the Bohack Bohack was a supermarket in the 70s and it featured prominently in many other Donald Westlake novels involving John Dortmunder whose girlfriend, May, worked there.”
  • One face you won’t recognize, but know the actor’s name today is that of Lane Smith. He is billed as “perpetrator” in this one, but you know him better as the prosecutor in “My Cousin Vinny.” He was also in the original “Red Dawn” (click here for my review) and I liked him just as much in “Son in Law” (click here for my review) with Pauly Shore as I did his neat turn in “Vinny.” Also, check him out as a sleazy politician in “The Distinguished Gentleman” with Eddie Murphy (click here for my review). Smith died at 69 in 2005 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “Two characters have musical cigar boxes which play Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake.’ This is likely a subtle reference by director Avakian to his previous movie End of the Road (1970) which used the piece repeatedly.”

© Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples,
©2022, ©2026
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