Cinema: Copy Cop

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Warning Shot is the kind of film that was a fixture of the Forties: a lawman, framed for murder, tries to clear himself in a race against the clock. In this case, the cop on the lam is David Janssen, the long-distance runner of television's Fugitive.

On the spoor of a sex killer, Janssen sees a suspect draw a pistol—and promptly guns him down. The victim turns out to be a widely respected M.D. When the doctor's pistol cannot be found, Berkeley-style pickets cry police brutality, and a grand jury indicts Janssen on a manslaughter charge. Eventually even California's finest turn their backs on one of their own. With less than ten days before trial time, he goes on a solo search for the missing gun and the story behind it. Running down false leads and blind alleys, Janssen caroms off a series of star suspects, including Lillian Gish as a septuagenarian lapdog lover, Eleanor Parker as a merry widow whose idea of mourning is martinis with black olives, and George Grizzard as a womanizing airline pilot.

Trying too hard to be brittle, the dialogue often simply crumbles. Director Buzz Kulik nonetheless manages to give Warning Shot velocity by getting polished performances from his cast and by catching the spirit of stucco swank that passes for class in some down-at-heels sections of Los Angeles. As a faithful copy of Hollywood's old hard-boiled style of detective fiction, the film is not likely to engender any emotion except nostalgia. But if it has the look and the sound of an antique, it also has some of its value.