The Pusher (1958)

The Pusher (1958) boasts some remarkable credits: a screenplay by Harold Robbins, adapted from an Ed McBain novel and directed by Gene Milford, one of Hollywood's top film editors.  Despite this, the end result struggles to rise above the level of a B-movie.  The low budget is plain to see in the cheap-looking sets, which are made to look even more threadbare when contrasted with the film's exterior locations, shot on the streets of New York.  Indeed, the extensive use of actual New York locations is the film's greatest strength, atmospherically shot in monochrome by cinematographer Arthur J.Ornitz, they add a touch of gritty authenticity to the drama.  The drama too, is gritty for its era, involving drug addiction, with scenes depicting the effects of withdrawal and a cold turkey sequence that predates that of The French Connection  (1972) by more than a decade.  But the pace feels off, with a striking opening involving the discovery of an apparent suicide in a gang club house - situated in an almost subterranean alleyway - giving way to parallel sub-plots, with the domestic affairs of the investigating police detectives continually interrupting the investigation itself.  Despite these two sub-plots being inextricably linked, the whole business of the Lieutenant's daughter, (also the lead detective's girlfriend), unfolds too slowly, to the detriment of the police procedural elements.

The source novel is, of course, part of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. I've written here before about other attempts to film entries in this series and the difficulties of adapting series novels into individual films.  Should the film makers acknowledge in some way that they are part of a wider 'universe', or should they be adapted as stand alone entities with no regard for the novels' ongoing continuity?  Robbins' script for The Pusher emphatically opts for the latter option, making significant changes to the source novel's plot and pretty much abandoning the series' underlying concept of being an ensemble piece, featuring an entire squad of detectives, with different members taking prominence in different novels.  (In reality, Steve Carella quickly became the readers' favourite character, taking the lead in most novels, but partnered with different characters and with sub-plots featuring other characters).  Only two detectives are even named in the film: Carella and Kling, with the latter barely featuring and in no way resembling his literary equivalent.  Even Carella doesn't bear much relationship to the character of the novels, feeling barely sketched in and playing a distinctly secondary role.  The film instead chooses to focus on the squad's commander, Lt Byrnes - which isn't entirely at odds with the source novel, where it is Byrnes' teenaged son who becomes addicted to drugs supplied by the titular pusher.  In the film, however, the son becomes his daughter and she is engaged to Carella, (in the books he is married to someone entirely different).   Again, Carella's secondary role isn't entirely out of step with the novel, where he is shot and wounded part way through, leaving his colleague's to complete the investigation.  (McBain had actually intended to kill him off, but his publishers intervened as the character was popular with readers).  

But the film switches the emphasis from Carella (or any other squad detective) to Byrnes to a degree that virtually crowds out Carella, making him a secondary character and consequently lessening the impact of his shooting, as he hasn't been sufficiently developed for the audience to invest in him emotionally.   Other changes from the source novel include the fact that the film is set explicitly in New York, whereas the books are set in a fictionalised version of the city, which is never named, plus, we are no longer in the 87th Precinct, with the action instead taking place in NYPD's 26th Precinct.  Although filmed in 1958, The Pusher wasn't released until 1960, for unknown reasons, although the fact that two other 87th Precinct adaptations had already been released that year, (like The Pusher, through United Artists), might have resulted in the distributors fearing that the market might become saturated.  The film is notable for casting Robert Lansing as Steve Carella, a role he would also play in the short-lived (1961-62) 87th Precinct TV series a few years later.  (This was rather more faithful to its source than any of the previous film adaptations).  Although somewhat disappointing as a an adaptation of an 87th Precinct novel, The Pusher is still far better than the previous two adaptations, Cop Hater and The Mugger, which had been produced on even lower budgets by producer/director William Berke.  Its New York exteriors at least give it some authentic atmosphere, even if Robbins' treatment of the source material tends toward the melodramatic, with ambitions of social commentary, rather than police procedural.