The Lineup

                      
Don Siegel's The Lineup is a topnotch B thriller from 1958. Derived from a television series, it suffers somewhat from its perfunctory police procedural format. Siegel seems much more interested in the two psychotic hit men, ably portrayed by Eli Wallach and Robert Keith. Their relationship foreshadows that of Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager (RIP!) in Siegel's The Killers. They are all lonely men trying to live outside the law, which seems to be Siegel's primary focus in his best films, such as his masterpiece, Charley Varrick. Keith's character even says a line which Bob Dylan swiped and altered for his Absolutely Sweet Marie, "...to live outside the law you must be honest."

As Andrew Sarris has pointed out, Siegel's experience as an editor served him well in shaping action scenes. The sequence near the end of The Lineup, like the shoot out at the conclusion of Madigan, is a model of crisp action direction and editing. Stirling Silliphant's script gives a perverse edge to the yarn and the San Francisco locations (some of which are long gone like the Sutro Baths) stirred a nostalgic pang of remembrance from this former resident of Baghdad by the Bay.