Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

classicsoncall Those words didn't come from Ed Stagg's (Lloyd Bridges) daughter, or even his dysfunctional son-in-law. It was the Sarge himself trying to convince Broderick Crawford's derelict drunk to take the fall for the accidental death of Louise Campbell (Anne Helm).Here's an idea - how about tracing the call made to the police station from Campbell's apartment at the time she was killed? Didn't anybody think of putting THAT two and two together? And with twenty five years on the force, the person on the phone at the station didn't recognize Stagg's voice?Maybe Broderick Crawford should have been in charge of this case like he was in the prior year's TV flick, "Ransom Money". On second thought, that one didn't turn out so well either. That might have been the one that drove him to drink.

evening1 A corrupt police sergeant who is perversely attached to his imbecilic daughter oversteps boundaries with impunity until he makes one fatal mistake.This 1971 melodrama is dated and overacted but is quite entertaining for just those reasons. (However, it does end a bit too lamely in a conventional twist that reminds one of how cynical movies have become...) I hadn't seen Lloyd Bridges since "Sea Hunt" and enjoyed him in this hysterical bad-guy role. Not at all a bad film to watch at home alone on a non-descript weeknight.

Michael_Elliott Tattered Web, A (1971) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Silly but entertaining made-for-TV thriller has Lloyd Bridges playing Sgt. Ed Stagg. He learns that his son-in-law (Frank Converse) has been having an affair so he goes to the woman to make her put an end to the affair. Stagg accidentally kills her so he must protect himself but also try to keep the police from finding out who her boyfriend was. I've come to expect a certain amount of silliness when it comes to these made-for-TV flicks from the 70s. It really doesn't matter what they're about but the majority of them are entertaining but also very campy. That's pretty much the case here as we get a pretty good story but it's mixed in with some very dumb moments. One of the biggest killers of this type of film are how over dramatic they can be and this here usually happens right before we go to commercial as the music blares and we get a silly zoom shot towards the guilty person. We get quite a bit of that here but we also get some very silly moments including the scenes at the start when Bridges busts into the woman's house and just keeps insulting her and calling her a tramp. I couldn't help but laugh at this as well as some of the more sillier moments including a priceless sequence where Bridges is trying to protect his daughter yet he never realizes that he's just putting a burden on her. The entire "protecting the daughter" is driven into the ground here as we get countless dialogue scenes with Bridges expressing his love for his daughter, which is fine but at times they are way too cute and over the top. With that said, the story itself is a pretty interesting one and I thought it was also rather clever as we had Bridges trying to do two things at once. I think it goes against his character that he'd do so many wrong things to try and clear everything up. As for the actor, he's great fun to watch here as he really gives it his all and keeps the film moving from start to finish. We also get a great supporting cast that includes Murray Hamilton, Broderick Crawford, Val Avery, Whit Bissell, John Fielder and Anne Helm as the other woman. The daughter in the film has to be one of the dumbest characters in the history of film as you'd think you were watching a 2-year-old. She can never figure things out and is constantly coming off either stupid or just downright ignorant and one can't help but grow frustrated with her. If you're a fan of the genre then this here is pretty much a must-see.

Hitchcoc While this is not "Crime and Punishment," it's still kind of a neat story. Lloyd Bridges plays an LA cop with a sterling reputation, but he is carrying around lots of baggage. He is so overprotective of his daughter because he has been hurt so many times himself. In order to continue that protection, he horns in on an affair his son in law is having with a young woman. While threatening this woman, he inadvertently kills her. The rest of the movie involves his efforts to cover things up and draw attention away from his daughter's husband. There is a tug based on Bridges' hypocrisy in that he has hated his son-in-law from day one, just for being his son-in-law. The plot stands up pretty well. The police are dupes in all this because of the outstanding record of the sergeant. The one character that really doesn't do very well is the daughter. She comes across pretty dull and doesn't have any hard edge at all. Late in the movie, when another police detective is trying to talk to her, she does her own version of the "if I just hold my hands over my ears I won't hear anything bad" routine. No wonder the guy went to another woman. As I said, there's a lot of angst, some decent acting, some not so decent, but it will hold one's attention for an hour and a half.