Gloom over Miami

By J.C.

THE STOOLIE

Directed by JOHN G. AVILDSEN

Screenplay by EUGENE PRICE, LARRY ALEXANDER and MARC B. RAY

In this affable, unambitious movie, Nightclub Comedian Jackie Mason appears as a grubby police informer named Roger Pittman, who heads for Miami and a big time with $7,500 from the police contingency fund. Brogan (Dan Frazer), the cop who lent Roger the money as a means to trap a crook, lights out after him. With a couple of days' head start, though, Roger is already spending like crazy. He installs himself in an expensive hotel room, acquires an eye-numbing resort wardrobe and falls in love with a lonely number from Long Island (Marcia Jean Kurtz).

The Stoolie has a good, gaudy eye for the excesses of Miami style. It is pleasant enough idling through places like the Parrot Jungle, which features birds who roller-skate, and a nightclub for the aged, where a singer named Peppy Fields exhorts her audience to think young. The trouble is that there is a plot to be got over, and one that hangs heavily indeed.

Roger has spent nearly all the 7,500 bucks, so when Brogan tracks him down he has almost nothing to return. The stoolie, the cop and the girl friend then form an unlikely trio, trying to figure a means to make the money back. There is a final burst of sentimentality that manages to promise both happy futures and just deserts. It also reveals the sappy foundation beneath the movie's superficially tough exterior, like a stand-up comic who spikes his patter with a tear.

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