All Coppers Are...

Part kitchen sink, part police drama – ALL COPPERS ARE… charters a few weeks in the life of Joe, a young, London based police constable (and not a particularly contented one at that). He’s a ‘bobby on the beat’ (Battersea to be precise) who married far too young, lives in a ghastly tower block with his devoted wife and a six-month old baby daughter. His domestic existence can best be described as orderly if somewhat dull whilst his professional life doesn’t exactly spell adventure either. But a couple of strangers with whom he strikes up an acquaintance are about to change things forever…

We open with Joe patrolling the streets of Battersea on his own when he hears a window smashing - a young man called Simmy (Robin Askwith) has broken into a car in a near deserted area close by and is attempting to steal the radio. After a chase down to the Thames, Joe apprehends the little villain and arrests him. At the police station a not exactly penitent Simmy shouts as he gets locked up “All coppers are bastards” (perhaps there’s a grain of truth in this exclamation given the current scandals surrounding the Met…). The same exclamation shows up as graffiti sprayed onto a wall at the start of the film, with an obvious attempt to remove the expletive while at the end of the film the controversial word has been freshly painted. Around the same time a young man in a flash car turns up to make notes of the times concerning a specific delivery lorry.

Enter Sue (Julia Foster), an alluringly dressed blonde who actually lives in the tower block opposite Joe's with her mum (50's sex siren Sandra Dorne) and fancy man Jock, played by the then ubiquitous Glynn Edwards (best known as Dave the long suffering barman from 'Minder'). Sue, we can see, is a likeable feisty girl and clearly dislikes her mum's lecherous gorilla of a boyfriend. Back at Joe's flat, his young wife Peg (Wendy Allnut) informs him that they've been invited to a wedding. Also in attendance at the lively reception are Sue whose outfit leaves little to the imagination and her Mum – sporting one of her usual trashy outfits and vulgar make-up. Another guest is Barry (Nicky Henson), a good for nothing small time crook who has been invited on the off chance by his landlady's son (an early appearance from David Essex) and just like Joe (who has arrived with Peg) is smitten by Sue when the three meet by chance ordering drinks at the bar. He’s also the guy driving the flash car in the earlier scene and instinctively we know he’s up to no good. Thus our three protagonists have been thrown together... well, well, well… this simply has to be a recipe for disaster. Barry, a randy little sod on top of being a total waste of space, has already got the hots for Sue but it's the diffident Joe she has her eye on. Despite their different personas the three seem to hit it off initially and Barry generously orders a bottle of bubbly though the money he pays with is presumably ‘dirty’ money. A short while later the jolly trio decide to leave the wedding reception before dashing off through the congested High Street whilst Joe's poor old missus looks on through a window. Show off Barry holds the tray of glasses (they must have been glued on) dancing through the heavy traffic followed by a little champagne picnic in the park along the Thames Embankment. Barry tells Joe that Sue fancies him but he confesses that he is married with a little kid, to which Barry remarks “You don’t have to tell her, do you?” though Joe, being a copper with a conscience, decides otherwise and hints that any attempts to pursue Sue, who is chatting with a friend she spotted some yards away, would be pointless and wrong. The three then return to the wedding reception, with Peg visibly angry for having been left alone and a guilt-ridden Joe (nothing has happened at that point) making lame excuses. A short time later after Joe leaves the building sans wife to attend a football match Sue, waiting in her car, conveniently offers him a lift to the football match as she’s going the same way. Whaddya know, Joe ends up watching the match… in her bed, yet still hasn’t told her he’s married! Alas, he's a susceptible young man and doesn't want to break up his family unit, therefore makes some lame excuses and feels even more guilty when he spots his wife hanging up laundry on the balcony opposite. We must assume a bunch of flowers, which Joe buys for Peg, will make right his little ‘mistake’ - at least in his mind.

Some days later, Barry takes his chance knowing full well that Joe has returned to his wife and knocks on Sue’s flat or rather, her mother’s flat to ask the seemingly disinterested young lass out for a drink. Who should be in the same pub at the same time? Yep, an off-duty Joe! Clearly delighted to see him again Sue starts behaving flirtatiously and Barry cheekily invites him to sit down with them before casually asking him – in front of Sue – how his wife and baby are! A shocked Sue is clearly offended but pretends to be aloof and immediately starts flirting with Barry. When the barman asks Joe for help after a punter has collapsed with a heart attack, Joe saves the man’s life by administering the ‘kiss of life’ and it’s only now that both Sue and Barry become aware that Joe is in fact a policeman. This doesn’t please Barry in the slightest as he has been planning a 'job' which involves him stealing a lorry-load of cigarettes from a nearby tobacco wholesale factory (hence him taking notes of the times the lorry arrives). He just needs a buyer - who turns out to be shady gangster/ entrepreneur Sonny Wade (Ian Hendry) who gives him a hard time when they meet in a bowling bar while Sonny’s accomplice ‘Fancy Boy’ (David Baxter having fun with a camp ott performance) unsuccessfully tries to chat up Barry (quite an embarrassing scene this). Before she knows it, poor old Sue gets inveigled by scheming little rat Barry who asks her to drive the getaway car.

On the actual day of the robbery and to pad things out a bit we even have an out of control political protest going on, with the demonstrators actually hell-bent on storming an embassy yet ending up attacking the cauldron of police officers, including Joe, who are trying to protect the building... Soon, things descend into brutal violence, what? This is London not Paris. Things start to get tougher still and you know it isn't going to be pretty. After the demo and with Joe back on the beat, the scene is neatly rounded up with the reappearance of Simmy on the street. “Aren’t you a little old to be doing a newspaper round?” Joe asks. Never mind Simmy, for Joe spots Sue sitting in her car and is about to encounter Barry again as well, albeit this time not on friendly terms. The film enters its bloody conclusion and those words Simmy uttered earlier are seen daubed on a wall.

The three leads really make this film which is not just kitchen sink but almost a tragic love story in many respects. It must be said you don't see many coppers who look like Martin Potter who, only three years earlier had played ‘Encolpio’ in Fellini’s SATYRICON. Julia Foster of course didn’t get the man she fancies in THE SMALL WORLD OF SAMMY LEE (1963) either. As for Nicky Henson, he delivers a totally convincing portrayal of the devious little Barry. The most cringe-worthy thing about the film is Ian Hendry's two brief appearance as Sonny Wade, looking and acting as if he had more interesting things planned than turning up for the scene – perhaps he had. Near heart-breaking when one thinks of some of his earlier work.

Nonetheless the story, although hardly original, is engaging throughout and Allan Prior was a busy TV-scriptwriter and co-creator of Z CARS. Still, one can't help feeling that this effort from 1972 could have benefitted from either more grit or would have worked better as a TV-play.

ALL COPPERS ARE… has been released both in DVD and Blu-ray format as a HD remaster from original film elements. Bonus features include brand-new interviews with Wendy Allnutt, 1st assistant editor Jonathan Morris and stuntman Chris Webb plus theatrical trailer, image gallery and limited edition booklet.