Antony Page Movies

Inspired by a true story, Prince of the City stars Treat Williams as a Manhattan detective who agrees to help the US Department of Justice weed out corruption in the NYPD. Williams agrees on the assurance that he'll never have to turn in a close friend. Wired for sound, Williams almost immediately stumbles upon a police conspiracy to smuggle narcotics to street informants in order to insure cooperation. While this might be condonable in a stretch, the fact is that the many cops are using the drugs on their own, and are also highly susceptible to bribes. Williams gets the goods on the miscreants, but in so doing he breaks the "code" and becomes a pariah to his fellow officers. As we learn in the unsettling final scene, Williams will always be considered a "fink," even by honest cops. Prince of the City is too long for its own good, but its opening expository sequences and its final twenty minutes more than compensate for the duller stretches. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Death of a Hooker was the spell-it-out alternate title for Ernest Pintoff's unorthodox murder mystery Who Killed Mary Whats'ername. At first, Red Buttons seems an illogical choice for a hero, especially since he plays a diabetic ex-boxer who isn't all that quick on the uptake. But Buttons gradually grows on the audience as he investigates the murder of a Greenwich Village prostitute whom he barely knew. With the help of his daughter Alice Playten, Buttons unearths a great many clues that we either overlooked or ignored by the cops. The film ends abruptly and somewhat tragically, which may have resulted in poor word of mouth when it was first released. Only after it became a Late Late Show perennial did Who Killed Mary Whats'ername? finally find its audience. The largely New York-based cast includes Sylvia Miles, Sam Waterston, Conrad Bain and, in an uncharacteristically repulsive "heavy" role, David Doyle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi