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The Choirboys (1977)

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23 comments in total

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11 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Pretty close to the real thing...I know, 21 gennaio 2006

Author: digitalzen-1 da United States

I was a cop with about 10 years on the street when I read Wambaugh's book, and figured the movie would be terrible. I thought Altman and his crew caught both the flavor of the book and of life on the mean streets of LA dead on.

Maybe you had to have been there. I was a great Hill Street fan (still am), but it was sanitized for TV, and much less like the real thing because of needing to maintain a plot line. Life ain't like that, and neither was The Choir Boys.

Cop humor is hard to fathom for outsiders. Cops are, in fact, a minority group anthropologically, meeting all the same criteria. Life out there doesn't go from A to B to C. It's chaotic. So was the movie, a little. Good job of catching the feeling.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Two movies in one., 21 settembre 2002

Author: gridoon

"The Choirboys" is essentially made of two different movies: the first half (and more) is a plotless, "Police Academy" -type (even if it was made several years earlier) comedy, and a fairly consistently UNfunny one, too. It's not that the gags aim mostly at a juvenile level (which they do); it's that they are simply not funny 90% of the time. In its second hour, the movie takes a sharp left turn toward drama, and surprisingly this part works better. But beware! There is a truly immoral finale that will annoy you if you take it seriously. (**)

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Offensive and Reactionary, 14 dicembre 2003
Author: dave bumsh uk da London, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Now, before you think I'm just part of some uptight moral majority that posts disgust at any film that goes beyond the pale, let me just state for the record that I'm really not easily offended. It's not so much the constant homophobia, racism & sexism in 'The Choirboys' that really got my goat (reprehensible though much of this is). It's the sheer, unabashed hypocricy that this film displays that really got this viewer steaming...

'The Choirboys'' would simply LOVE to convince you that it's a wild, anti-establishment, anarchic comedy-drama a la Robert Altman's 'MASH', when in reality it's simply one of the most morally conservative, shockingly reactionary and damned mean-spirited movies released to theatres during the 1970's. I'm surprised that William Friedkin's movie 'Cruising' is still remembered today as the ultimate in offensive stereotyping - viewing it now, it just seems too arch, OTT and plain ridiculous to really take seriously. But 'The Choirboys' does indeed remain as repugnant today as the day it was released (and disavowed by it's author).

*SPOILERS* The tone in the movie is chaotic, to say the least: from the sub-'Police Academy' comedy sequences (painful) to the soap-opera level intelligence of the supposedly raw, dramatic moments (which range from mildly offensive to "what the hell were they thinking?"). And the ending? Well, a Vietnam Vet cop (who feels guilty about causing the suicide of his 'pervert' friend, just coz the poor guy liked a bit of private, consensual S&M), freaks out and shoots "a park fag" in the neck, and we then witness the central character (Charles Durning) get everyone off of the ensuing murder charge - and director Aldrich swiftly makes it clear that we're supposed to be cheering these b**tards on! - (cue end titles, which run to a soundtrack of the main cast sneering and laughing maniacally in turn... which is disturbing on WAAAAY more levels than the film-makers planned, let me tell you). *SPOILERS END*

No doubt the filmmakers themselves, alongside a handful of critics, will have you believe that 'hey - this is the way it really is', and that 'The Choirboys' is in fact some gritty, underrated urban classic that refuses to pull it's punches. Balls. 'The Choirboys' is a rabid dog of a movie - a cackling, vitriolic excercise that seems to hate modernity, reality and humanity itself. Don't degrade yourself by giving this disowned puppy two hours of your time...

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Staggeringly awful cop flick, allegedly a black comedy (but you'll look long and hard for any trace of humour!), 30 dicembre 2006

Author: Jonathon Dabell (barnabyrudge@hotmail.com) da Wakefield, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Director Robert Aldrich doesn't often deliver a film that falls in the middle ground. Most of the time, Aldrich's name on the film either guarantees a good movie or an absolutely terrible one. The Choirboys is Aldrich at his very worst – if you thought The Grissom Gang and Hustle were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet! It is a tasteless and repetitively episodic story, a complete mess of a film which merely reinforces the very prejudices that it is supposedly criticising. Nothing about the film works, not even slightly. Joseph Wambaugh, who penned the original novel upon which the movie is based, was so appalled at this travesty that he took legal action to have his name removed from the credits! That should tell you all you need to know.

A unit of L.A. cops spend their shifts patrolling the city in search of violence and sleaze. When they're on duty they are little better than thugs with a badge, dishing out justice with total disregard for moral standards and public safety. When they're off duty they are even worse, spending their nights getting drunk in a local park and acting like hooligans. Slowly but surely, each character's motivations are revealed. For example, Officer Sam Lyles (Don Stroud) is shown to be an ex-Vietnam vet whose wartime experiences have left him claustrophobic. In one harrowing scene, he flips out whilst drunk in a locked police van and kills a hustler, a shocking act that the higher echelons of the L.A. force are only too keen to cover up. A pair of cops (Randy Quaid, Tim McIntire) are assigned to talk a suicide jumper down from a high-rise building, but their approach is so unsubtle and aggressive that she ends up flinging herself to her death. One cop, the handsome all-American Baxter Slate (Perry King), is found out as a kinky sex addict and disowned by his colleagues, leading to such personal shame that he commits suicide. And so it goes…. the cops continually foul up one job after another with their trigger-happy attitudes, their racist and sexist unprofessionalism, and their reckless disregard for true law and order.

There are those who hail The Choirboys as a blackly comic expose of the police profession. But in truth there is nothing funny about this horrible little film. Aldrich virtually hammers us over the head with extreme vulgarity and offensiveness to make his point, and the approach is so heavy-handed and unpleasant that the film becomes a challenge to sit through. The cast of terrific actors are particularly embarrassing in their thankless roles, none more so than Lou Gossett Jr, Charles Durning and Robert Webber (the latter especially degraded by his part as a callous superior officer with an immoral personal agenda). Christopher Knopf's screenplay offers no glimmer of salvation for the gallery of slimeball characters, so that as the film comes to an end after its interminable two hours the viewer is left with a nasty taste in the mouth and an empty feeling in the stomach. Avoid The Choirboys – it's one of the worst of all-time!

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
It's too stupid to be satirical--and too offensive to be funny, 16 giugno 2007

Author: moonspinner55 da redlands, ca

Joseph Wambaugh disowned this film-adaptation of his bestseller about department low-lifes within the Los Angeles police force, but the experience probably shamed him anyway--and anyone who gets through the picture will feel shame for him. Half-assed mixture of smut-minded hijinks and 'sobering' cop drama is so sloppily constructed I am amazed director Robert Aldrich didn't remove his name as well. Aldrich, once a filmmaker of merit, seems to have nothing on his agenda here except earning a paycheck (ditto cinematographer Joseph Biroc, who does some of the gloppiest, ugliest work I have ever seen in a major movie). The mostly-male cast members continually smirk and leer throughout (it's difficult to distinguish the characters' loutish behavior from the actual actors themselves--everyone comes off looking pathetic). The low-point of the movie comes when snarling cop Tim McIntire (in a career-ending turn) is hand-cuffed to a tree without his pants and is spotted by a mincing homosexual. McIntire threatens to tear out the guy's liver and break his spleen if he comes near him. Everyone on screen is doubled over with laughter, but the viewer is the butt of the joke. * from ****

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
What's Going On?, 30 marzo 2006

Author: sol1218 da brooklyn NY

(Slight Spoilers) Running neck and neck with the ridicules "Exorcist II: the Hieratic" as the worst movie of 1977 "The Chiorboys" is about the most off-the-wall cop movie ever made that was so bad that even the book's author Joseph Wambaugh,that the movie is based on, disowned it never wanting to be mentioned in the same breath with the film.

Having a bunch of beer and booze guzzling as well as mentally unstable LA police officers make complete fools of themselves is not very funny as the movie want's it's audience to think. These yo-yo's end up causing more trouble to the community as well as themselves then any gang of street thugs could possibly do and were supposed to like them? There are a number of cops who have very serious mental hang-ups that leads to suicide and in the case of police officer Sam Lyles, Don Stroud, involuntary manslaughter but what that shows is how lax the LAPD is in allowing men with serious mental problems into it ranks.

The cops in the movie "The Chiorboys" screw up almost ever assignment that their put on but what get's them in trouble is when Lyles, drunk and locked up in a police paddy wagon, goes wacko and blows away a park hustler when he tried to help him. Were shown at the beginning of the movie that Lyles has been suffering from a sever case of claustrophobia since he was in Vietnam but yet he managed to get into the LAPD where, being assigned a deadly weapon, he may very well be put in tight places where his phobia would take over his common sense.

There's also the sad case of officer Baxter Slate, Perry King, who's suffering from very dark sexual hangups dealing with S&M that leads him to get involved with a dominatrix. When discovered getting his rocks off by his fellow cops Baxter begs them for help, all Baxter wanted was for them to talk to him, but is ignored which leads to him, feeling ashamed and abundant, shooting himself.

With these two cases of police driven to he edge and beyond it's very hard to find anything funny in the movie that's supposed to be a police comedy/drama about the inner workings of the LAPD. Remarkably the most touching and understanding scene in the movie has to do with the uncouth and scuzzy head of the vice squad Sgt. Scuzzi, Burt Young. Talking to a young man picked up for soliciting in the park Sgt. Scuzzi takes the time to talk to him and treats the frightened 18 year-old with kindness and understanding like a father not a hardened cop on the beat. It turned out that Scuzzi letting the boy off without being booked didn't end his problems with him getting shot and killed later in the movie.

Very uneven at best and mindless and offensive, to every race color and creed, at worse "The Chiorboys" totally misses the mark that it, and author Joseph Wambaugh in his book, tried to make about the pressures of being a policeman in a major US city. We get a bunch of stories of cops who are so unstable and unprofessional that they come across worse then any of the criminals in the movie and end up getting the worse of it when their ever called upon to arrest or restrain them. There's even a very disturbing scene when two of the cops Rules & Proust, Tim Mcintire & Randy Quaid, are on a roof trying to stop a woman from jumping to her death. Rules encourages instead of trying to talk her out of it where she ends up jumping to her death.

The very contrive ending with officer Whalen, Charles Durning, confronting his boss Chief Deputy Riggs, Robert Webber, about him suspending some half-dozen officers, involved in the cover-up of the Lyles shooting was about as corny and unconvincing as it could get. That was supposed to be the high point in the movie that would make you forget just how silly and hare-brained it was up until then. Instead of making the movie "The Chiorboys" better it made it even worse if that at all was possible.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Hateable, execrable, reactionary, apologist vomit, 1 marzo 2007

Author: matthewscott8 da United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Robert Aldrich is one of the greatest directors of all time, of the films I've seen he produced two stone-cold all-time classics, 'Kiss Me Deadly' and 'Ulzana's Raid', one of my favourite guilty pleasures 'The Dirty Dozen', as well as highly notable cult films such as The Killing of Sister George and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and I'm sure many others I haven't seen. He was a prolific director noted for being able to film to a high standard in different genres and styles, defying the auteur theory of current popularity. Quite how then he created such an incredibly offensive movie then is a matter to ponder over and only worth considering because of the director's fame.

The film focuses on a group of puerile, violent, immoral patrol officers and their antics. Once a week they take over the local park for drunken hilarity, and shooting at ducks. Choir practice as they call it. It is hard to think of a more dislikeable bunch. We have uber-redneck Officer Roscoe Rules who enjoys beating up homosexuals; Officer 'Spermwhale' Whalen whose hobby is to continually question authority, undermine his department, and generally spread bad vibes; Officer 'Balls' Hadley, and his good lady, officer 'No Balls' Hadley, the continuous butt of sexual harassment and discrimination; Sergeant Scuzzi (played by Burt Young of Rocky fame) an unkempt unwashed slob from vice who everyone thinks is the precinct janitor; Officer Francis Tanaguchi, the squad's pet 'gook'. etc. These guys are more interested in playing pranks on their superiors and starting fights with 'greasers' than in protecting and serving.

What is astonishing is that apparently the portrayal of this scurvy bunch is actually realistic of police behaviour of the time. Some people think that this redeems the movie, I would suggest however that the treatment of these officers is far too sympathetic. We are supposedly meant to rejoice at the end when all officers involved in the shooting of an innocent gay teenager receive slaps on the wrist. The treatment of homosexuals as simpering, lisping queens is incredibly offensive, particularly the gentleman in the park walking a pink poodle and savouring an encounter with 'a naked man tied to a tree'.

Another reviewer claims that you can't expect much more off of a bunch of Vietnam vets with only high-school diplomas, my goodness have ideals sunk so low? I remember a scene in the film 'Electra Glide in Blue' when a Vietnam Vet who was a highway patrolman gave a 'perp' who was also a vet advice that he couldn't use his service record as an excuse to drop out and behave badly. There is much better moral authority from that movie. No-one needs an excuse for failure, and definitely the officers in this movie have none.

I think the film promotes a stereotypical view of sadomasochism and vice in general, and because it is apologist and even sympathetic in it's approach to the immorality and more importantly extreme irresponsibility of the police officers, I would call it a truly Fascist movie.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Definitely a cop's movie, 17 dicembre 2006

Author: brianh32 da United States

Before you go on to complain about this movie, you need to realize it was filmed 30 years ago. I was 1 year old when this movie came out and I have grown up around cops.

I have very little doubt these antics used to go on but now they are left as a part of history.

How do you expect a group of guys with a high school diploma, Vietnam war service and a thankless job to behave? Have you ever gotten off work so late the bars are closed but you want to blow off some steam about the things that happened to you? Where do you go when the bars are closed? Just as Blazing Sadles could not be filmed today, I don't think you could film this movie either. I doubt society or departments approved of this behavior but I am certain a blind eye was turned. Now since the Rampart scandal, Rodney King and other incidents nobody can do this anymore.

If you want to try to understand why this movie is funny, try doing a Google search for, "Why cops hate you"

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
To each his own, 7 aprile 2006

Author: nearhood1 da United States

Once again I am forced to defend a decent movie. I saw this movie when it came out, I was in college. I thought it was very funny and was a blend of comedy and drama that was above most of the other fair at that time. I saw it again recently and while it had perhaps lost a little of its luster I thought it was still pretty funny. Of course, if you don't like anyone saying politically incorrect things (even if that person is presented as a total moron) then you might be too "delicate" to appreciate the humor.

Tim McIntyre was hilarious as Roscoe Rules and there was a young Randy Quaid, and James Woods as well. Charles Durning is effective in this film and far from hating the ending, I thought it was not "Upbeat" but rather merely stopped the movie from being a total downer.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
I loved the book and the movie, sorry., 28 marzo 2008

Author: m-knell da United Kingdom

It seems like we're supposed to hate this one but I loved it, I'm sorry but there you go.

Maybe it was because it came out at the time when punk had just happened. To me the book & the movie were such a break from the usual stereotypical pro-authority nonsense we were being regularly served up at the time (and sadly we seem to have gotten back to these days).

Naturally the book was, by far, the better experience (a genuine 'laugh out loud' read to be highly recommended) but nevertheless I found both hilarious and a long overdue reality check on the forelock tugging blind belief in benevolent and always virtuous 'authority' (something which applies well outsides of the confines of any Police unit too).

I think it's a real pity we seem to have lost that very healthy irreverence & scepticism and are today saddled with way too much haughty hard-faced tedium and an expectation that we blindly trust authority figures.

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