Geofferson

Was channel surfing the other night and came across this movie airing on Cinemax. I had never seen it, let alone heard of it, but being from the early-80s and with the word 'Vice' in the title, I had to check it out. Amazingly, it was actually quite good. It's easy to dismiss it as one of the 'street exploitation' movies that pervaded cinema at that time, but it has some distinctive qualities to it (not to mention arguably Wings Hauser's best role to date).

It was an Embassy picture, so no surprise it was probably lost to obscurity (along with numerous other Embassy movies) when they went under a while back.

Stars: Season Hubley, Wings Hauser, Gary Swanson

Anyone seen this before?

A few things I learned
- Wings Hauser sang the theme song 'Neon Slime'
- Martin Scorsese was a reportedly a fan in the early-80s when it came out
- Its rumored to be inspiration for James Cameron when he sat down to write Terminator (lady being pursued by a killer in the city)
- Gary Swanson's detective character says, "make my day" a year before Clint Eastwood uttered similar words in Sudden Impact

inri222

Saw it in the movies when it first came out & I own the OOP Anchor Bay dvd. A tense gritty sleazy grindhouse thriller with good performances from Wings Hauser & Season Hubley.
Nice cameos from What's Happening's Fred "Rerun" Berry as a pimp and MTV VJ Nina Blackwood as a hooker.

Oh and that song is good.....

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/fMFqPFrfZ4o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Norm de Plume

I have to disagree; I found it mundane, but it has its champions.

Solid Snake

I've heard the name but never seen it.

Mondo Kane

The problem that I had with this movie was that all of it's best bits were spoiled on Terror in the Aisles.

Julie Walker

The theme song rocks! I wish this would come out on blu-ray.

inri222

Interesting fact :

The cinematographer of A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon & The Shining also did Vice Squad.

joliom

Wings Hauser is the scariest pimp I've ever seen.

iggystar

So many fond, late-night HBO memories of this movie as a young teenager! I wonder how it holds up now seeing it as an adult!

Hokeyboy

I'll always remember this as it features MTV VJ Nina Blackwood in all her 80s hotness as a hooker, and Rerun from WHATS HAPPENING? gets his nuts cut off.

EDIT: Mentioned above by inri, but worth repeating

joliom

It might have even spawned the short-lived genre of 'prostitute in peril' movies with the likes of Angel, Streetwalkin', Hollywood Vice Squad, and Streets following in its wake. You could probably also include Street Smart as well, with Christopher Reeve playing a naïve reporter in place of the usual resilient hooker.

Lastdaysofrain

Beating hookers was to the 80s as rape/revenge seemed to be in the 70s. It's a quality movie but just so grim and downbeat it's not "fun" to watch. Am I remembering wrong there was also a movie out around the same time called "Hollywood Vice Squad" that had Carrie Fischer in it? I was always confusing the two movies.

inri222

http://spectrumculture.com/film/crim...ed-vice-squad/

Criminally Underrated: Vice Squad

Vice Squad opened in New York City the same day as On Golden Pond. It was January 22, 1982. The high temperature in Manhattan was a frigid 18 degrees. There could hardly have been a more polarized choice for a mid-winter Friday night’s entertainment: a tearjerker about a pair of Hollywood legends in their golden years, or a seedy Los Angeles crime drama whose heroine performs golden showers.

Despite appearances, Vice Squad was a B-movie in prestige picture clothing, albeit the cinematic equivalent of a designer tube top. Its wet, neon-drenched LA streets were shot by master cinematographer John Alcott, who worked on a string of Stanley Kubrick classics (and won an Oscar for his natural-light work on Barry Lyndon). Vice Squad director Gary Sherman is no Kubrick, and Vice Squad doesn’t boast the careful art direction of A Clockwork Orange. But this sleazy exploitation is a low-rent version of the old ultra-violence, its observation of urban low-life like Taxi Driver stripped of art house trappings.

Reviews were mixed at the time. For every positive notice (Vincent Canby of The New York Times actually liked it), there were just as many who found the movie to have no redeeming value. For every critic who appreciated Alcott’s cinematography, there was another who found the production values on a par with his uncle’s home movies. I want to see those home movies!

Alcott’s camera took a gritty look at Sunset Boulevard that starts with high heels. As the credits begin to a sleazy rock and roll drum beat, the camera does a once over from the shoes up on one of the Strip’s night walkers. B-movie geeks will recognize the mewling voice on the theme song: that‘s Wings Hauser singing “Neon Slime,” and it’s not his first musical endeavor. Hauser led the psychedelic folk band Vision of Sunshine and also released a solo album under the name Wings Livinryte. One of his four guest appearances on “Murder, She Wrote” even featured a fictional album cover for his character of a murderous gardener. Hauser’s vulgar rock star strut sets the menacing, over-the-top tone for Vice Squad, much as his effectively menacing villain Ramrod sets the tone of the Strip.

The first prostitute we meet is Princess (Season Hubley), whose conservative ‘80s hairstyle and wardrobe seems modeled after Princess Diana. As Princess plays on girls’ fairy tales (and perhaps anticipates the sordid end of her inspiration), Ramrod subverts American pop myth: a cowboy-hat wearing pimp who keeps framed pictures of Elvis in his lair.

If this sounds like exploitation, it is. But it’s vividly drawn exploitation that revels in cinematic sleaze. I hated Vice Squad when I first saw it on HBO in the early ’80s. I was a teenager. drawn to sleazy cable movies, and if its program notes included the warning “strong sexual content,” all the better. While this usually meant rowdy coming of age movies or art house sexploitation, with Vice Squad the warning was cautionary, its vision of sex not about pleasure at all but about violence and degradation.

In a verbally graphic scene, vice squad officer Walsh (Gary Swanson) fills in a cornrowed officer on the varieties of sexual experience they were likely to hear about on their sordid new beat. The movie’s most sexually graphic scenes were its most violent, as Ramrod wielded fists and coat-hangers in his sadistic display of power. It was completely unsettling to a teenager, and the movie put me off Wings Hauser for years. Only recently have I come to appreciate Hauser’s effectiveness as a villain—and, as I explained in a previous Underrated column on Tough Guys Don’t Dance, as an unrepentant ham.

Alcott’s cinematography makes Vice Squad watchable; Hauser’s Ramrod makes it enjoyable. He’s the Michael Myers of pimps, a seemingly unstoppable monster drawn from real life. As a title card claims before the credits roll, Vice Squad, “Though a work of fiction… is a composite of events that have actually taken place on the streets of Hollywood.” Another American myth to which the movie lays waste.

Boba Fett

DWilson

"Hollywood Vice Squad" is a Penelope Spheeris film from about '85/86, -very episodic, dealing with several cases -with Ronny Cox as The Captain. Another Exploitation film that gave you a Cop story with edgier material than you'd generally see on TV at the time, though TV caught up pretty quickly. I watched it in November on Amazon Prime, -it might still be there.

inri222

davidlynchfan

Yes. Has Shout Select written all over it.

TomOpus

I saw it at the drive-in back in the day. I just remember it was another attempt to make Kurt Russell's wife a star.

Ash Ketchum

I've never understood how he went from Season Hubley to Goldie Hawn.

TomOpus

He probably had a fling with Season, she got pregnant and he felt compelled to marry her. Goldie probably grounds him and has a good heart. They've been together 35 years. That says a lot.

lokin4areason

havent seen this before but it ll be on the " to do list "

davidlynchfan

Collector's Edition on August 13th (according to that other site). Yee-haw, Yippie! Ramrod must be the sickest sleaze-lord of a pimp ever created.

Inhumans99

d2cheer

If they don't get a commentary from Wings or a new interview it will be a damn shame...

inri222

I hope so. I still have the old Anchor Bay dvd and it has a commentary with the director, trailer, stills and posters.