Good cops

I watched The Dead Talk Back last night and it occured to me that the cops were actually pretty competent. My dad was a cop and with so many Mst movies featuring incompetent cops (Squirm anyone?) let’s look back on cops competent and incompetent in Mst movies. Your favorites? Most disgustingly incompetent?

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I always liked the cop in Track of the Moon Beast. He took Johnny Longbone seriously and pretty much did the right thing all the way down the line. Of course, he still wound up with two dead cops because he took the advice of a stew loving professor.

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Squirm’s sheriff is pretty much the worst of them as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps in a dead heat with Sheriff Menacing W. Pervert from IT Lives by Night.

One of the better cops (not a good one but still better) was from Earth vs. the Spider. I know he’s a jerk and all, but he does investigate and in his position, being skeptical is not a bad trait to have. He even listens to the science teacher in spite of being a bit derogatory about it. He still listens when he gives advice.

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Is that why those two cops died? I thought it was just because they opened fire and didn’t get out of the way. I didn’t think Johnny Longbow actually told him what to do there.

I guess I’ll have to watch the episode again and check it out. Darn. :slight_smile:

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How about the cop in The Last Clear Chance? He gives a lengthy lecture on driving safety and disaster occurs moments later.

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The sheriff in The Giant Gila Monster was fairly decent. Actually listened and respected the teens and often sought their help/advice instead of treating them as generic delinquents.

Granted, everything was still somehow out of his jurisdiction, but still.

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I want to give the competency title to the Radar Patrol in Radar Secret Service, but you’d think that with radar tech at their disposal, they would have had everything wrapped up in ten, fifteen minutes, tops.

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As far as likeability and being a favorite goes, I’m partial to Marshal Rose Wood in Gunslinger, even though I’m not sure if I should technically dock her some points for the entire town being dead by the final reel.

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I’m not sure you can blame the accident on him, though. For one thing, the people who got in the accident weren’t even there for the discussion. For another, it wasn’t like he was telling them to be stupid. (“The cop never said anything about doing intensely stupid things!”)

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I wondered about her as well. She did try to enforce the laws that were on the books and no one can fault her dedication. …but yeah, there is the whole town apparently dead thing.

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Yeah, it’s tough to fault the cop for the whole “looking backwards and waving while driving forward” thing.

Making himself at home at that farm and helping himself to whatever chow he helped himself to? That’s a whole other matter.

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She was dedicated and determined, she resolved to do the right thing, she didn’t blink in the face of danger, all good stuff, and you can’t help but applaud her…

… but the whole town being dead thing DOESN’T look great on paper, admittedly.

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How about Elaine, the cop member of the seven in Angels Revenge, the one who looks like Laraine Newman? She helped to take down such formidable foes as Jack Palance and Peter Lawford.

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I’d go with that. Elaine and the Angels did get a lot accomplished in competent and efficient fashion, and with minimal collateral damage.

Compare with Deputy Geronimo in Final Justice, who kept getting arrested by the Maltese authorities and basically left a smoldering crater of death everywhere he went.

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Another really bad cop - the one who arrests Mamie Van Doren and her sister in Untamed Youth.

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Let’s see.
Breaking and Entering at least 3.
Larceny to get a van.
Encouraging the delinquency of a minor.
California in the 1970s pretty sure you couldn’t conceal carry.
Holding those two guys on the beach hostage.
Destruction of property at three separate locations.
About a dozen counts of attempted murder.

Not sure anything she did was legal. Any of the "bad guys’ that survive wouldn’t even see the inside of a courtroom and probably would have a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the police force since this was approved by her supervisor.

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Well, if you want to split hairs…

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I’m gonna go ahead and get this one on out
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So is he good, bad or incompetent?

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