looking for movie with police automobile-tracking scene

[nicksays]

Hello all.

 

I'm hoping someone out there can help me. I'm working on an academic article, and I'm hoping to find a movie with a certain motif that I can incorporate into my paper.

 

Basically, I'm looking for a movie with what seems like a classic motif: a police officer discreetly following someone around in their car, tracking their movements. it's important that the officer be tracking the vehicle (i.e., to see where the suspect is driving to), and NOT that the cop is merely sitting in his car watching what the suspect is doing outside is car (e.g. watching the suspect load a body into his trunk).

 

It doesn't necessarily need to be the focus of the movie; it just needs to be a scene in a film.

 

Thanks so much for your help!

[vallo13]

There are scenes like that where the Cops are tracing, with a radar devise a psychopathic criminal Cody Jarrett (James Cagney in "White Heat" 1949 )

 

Try Here:http://imdb.com/title/tt0042041/

 

 

vallo

[nicksays]

thanks vallo. i haven't seen that one.

 

a potential problem: i'm writing about the effect of modern technology (most notably, GPS systems) on police work today. i wanted to start off the paper with something of a contrast: the "traditional" police tracking, with the police following the suspect around. the fact that the movie involves a radar device might hurt my comparison.

 

let me know if you think of anything else!

 

Message was edited by: nicksays

[vallo13]

I'm not sure but the Undercover cop made the receiver (so the real cops can follow) out of Transistor radio parts. The cop had these huge circular antenna's on the top of their cars to trace the signal. This devise was also used (but it looked like a Satellite Dish) to trace Flying Saucers in the 1956 film "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers"

try here:http://imdb.com/title/tt0049169/

 

vallo

[scsu1975]

Perhaps in the original DRAGNET movie there might be something like that .. I haven't seen it in a long time. In the TV series, there were probably some typical "tails" without gadgetry. I also seem to remember an earlier tracking in WHITE HEAT, without the radio transmitter.

[webestang]

There is a good tracking sequence in the movie 'The Seven-Ups"...That's all I can think of....

[nicksays]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, everyone. I'll be checking some of these films out.

 

If anyone else has suggestions, please keep them coming.

[lzcutter]

I think that 711 Ocean Drive with Edmund O'Brien has some electronic tracking scenes as well.

[Buffalo_Chuck]

I'd still vote WHITE HEAT. Edmund O'Brien's got a tricked-out radio that gives off a signal the cops can triangulate on to keep tabs on the bad guys.

 

Frankly, I think this film should be must-viewing based on technology alone for just about every guy. Ya never know when you might need to befriend Virginia Mayo, Audrey Totter, Gloria Grahame, Jane Greer, etc. and might use their bedroom radio as a transmitter when you're trapped inside an empty Trojan truck.

 

I know I'd certainly use that excuse (or any others - I'd certainly be open to suggestions!) if I could befriend any of those femme fatales.

[nicksays]

The only thing... I need a scene involving a police tail with NO technology involved. So White Heat won't work unless, as a poster suggested below, there is indeed a tracking scene with no technology involved (but even then I'm worried that the issues will be conflated, especially since, as this post suggests, people seem to remember the police tracking in White Heat specifically for the technology involved).

[OllieTSB]

WHITE HEAT has a several 'tracking the bad guy' scenarios. Early in the film, it's a plain getaway and car chase.

 

The radio-job tracking job is done at the end of the film and is actually a pseudo-neo-quasi Morse Code system of a dragging chain that taps out the radio signal. Incredibly low-tech, but the cops are using radio trangulation to let the bad guys reach their destination and then close in.

 

A fairly recent made-for-TV film: IN THE LINE OF DUTY: THE FBI MURDERS with David Soul and Michael Gross recreating the feats of some South Florida bank robbers.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095366/

 

That's a pretty straightforward manual, old-fashioned "look for then discreetly tail" job. The more I recall of this film, maybe that's a good one. The Bad Guys steal a couple of vehicles for each bank job, then use them as immediate and secondary getaway vehicles, then switch over and over. One time they only use 1 switch car and a civilian has tailed them and reports their real vehicle identity.

 

In fact, this one might be recommended because, despite all the fancy technology that the '80s cops had, they still needed lucky breaks ("car spotted!") on a certain day. The only technology used was the radio to coordinate the final close-in scene, which is incredibly poorly done!