The Seven-Ups
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
The Seven-Ups is a 1973 American mystery action film produced and directed by Philip D'Antoni. It stars Roy Scheider as a crusading policeman who is the leader of The Seven-Ups, a squad of plainclothes officers who use dirty, unorthodox tactics to snare their quarry on charges leading to prison sentences of seven years or more upon prosecution, hence the name of the team.
D'Antoni took his sole directing credit on this film. He was earlier responsible for producing the action thriller Bullitt, followed by The French Connection, which won him the 1971 Academy Award for Best Picture. All three feature a memorable car chase sequence.
Several other people who worked on The French Connection were also involved in this film, such as Scheider, screenwriter and police technical advisor Sonny Grosso, composer Don Ellis, and stunt coordinator Bill Hickman. 20th Century Fox was again the distributor.
Buddy Manucci, played by Scheider, is a loose remake of the character of Buddy "Cloudy" Russo he played in The French Connection, a character who also used dirty tactics to capture his enemies, and who was also based on Sonny Grosso.
Plot
NYPD detective Buddy Manucci has been getting flak from the higher-ups in the New York City police force because his team of renegade policemen, known as the "seven-ups" (so called because most criminals they arrest receive sentences from seven years and up) has been using unorthodox methods to capture criminals; this is illustrated as the team ransacks an antiques store that is a front for the running of counterfeit money.
There's also been a rash of kidnappings of mafia figures and white-collar criminals, such as when Max Kalish is kidnapped and a ransom is paid at a car wash.
Manucci and the squad learn of the kidnappings when crooked bail bondsman Festa is grabbed in public by two men claiming to be from the district attorney's office. Buddy gets information from his regular snitch, informant Vito Lucia, who turns out to be untrustworthy. When they stake out a funeral meeting of Kalish and his people, disaster follows and it leads to the death of one of the seven-up officers. A violent car chase ensues. Buddy chases after the killers, Moon and Bo, and other officers try to by blockade the two, but Moon and Bo escape when Buddy's car violently collides into a truck, shearing off the roof. Miraculously, he survives the almost fatal accident.
Manucci figures out the puzzle after he and the squad rough up Kalish and his wife. He and the squad then must stake out the house of a garage worker who knows too much to smoke out the killers.
Cast
- Roy Scheider as Buddy Mannuci
- Tony Lo Bianco as Vito Lucia
- Larry Haines as Max Kalish
- Richard Lynch as Moon
- Bill Hickman as Bo
- Jerry Leon as Mingo
- Victor Arnold as Barilli
- Ken Kercheval as Ansel
- Lou Polan as Carmine Coltello
- Matt Russo as Festa
- Joe Spinell as Toredano
- Robert Burr as Lieutenant Hanes
See also
