Max’s Drive – In Movie – The Seven-Ups…

I’ve had problems posting this so I’ll try one more time. 

My cousin Ricky let me borrow this movie because he thought I would like it. He was right. It’s described as a crime, action, mystery, and neo-noir ’70s police movie. I would easily put it in the same category as The French Connection and movies like that. Some of the same techniques and backdrops. It was released in 1973, and you can’t get any more early seventies than this movie. 

My uncle was an undercover cop (Fulton was his name) in the ’70s and ’80s, and the movie rings true to some of the stories he told me. In one incident, he was undercover in a restaurant in a drug deal, and someone he knew in real life came up and yelled, “Hey, Fulton!” he had to lay the guy out right there with a punch and pass it off as something else.  I never asked if he was still friends with the guy afterward. It was a dangerous job, and black roses were delivered to his doorstep more than once. 

Philip D’Antoni directed this film. He had produced The French Connection and Bullit. This was his only director credit to his name. Some think it is a follow-up on Scheider’s character of Buddy from The French Connection. It doesn’t matter because it’s strong either way. The movie is not perfect; it has a few disjointed plot points, but it works well. 

It has that grittiness that I love in movies from this period. The realistic feel makes the story so much better because you buy into it. The actors look like everyday people against the backdrop of early 70s New York. When I see some period modern movies try to replicate this look… they usually fail. You won’t find one thing in this movie that is new and shiny. Even the car wash looks grim. 

The Seven Ups has all the earmarks of a 70s Cop film. Corruption, rogue cops, and the mafia all rolled up into one. It has that stark, cold landscape feel from the ’70s. You almost want to slip on a jacket while watching. You also have a hell of a car chase that was in many movies at this time, and this one does not disappoint. If you want a real white knuckle car chase, you just have to see the one in this film. You feel like you’re right in the middle of it.

 Roy Scheider is Buddy and one of a small group of NYC cops with unusual methods, and they are called The Seven-Ups. One of his partners is murdered, and he sets out to find and kill the thugs who were responsible while at the same time discovering that they’re involved in a plan to kidnap mobsters to extort ransom money. 

The movie encompasses all the pitfalls and dangers of police undercover work and the alliances between partners, as well as the relationships and betrayals of informers. The cast is superb, and one of the things that made it even better is none of the actors at the time were big stars. I do like that in some movies because you don’t really associate the actors with other roles. Roy Scheider would soon star in Jaws a couple of years after this movie. 

Plot

The movie follows Buddy Manucci (played by Roy Scheider), a tough New York City detective leading an elite undercover police unit called The Seven-Ups—named after their specialty of catching criminals who receive sentences of seven years or more. The unit operates in the shadows, using unorthodox methods to bring down high-level criminals.

However, their investigation into a series of kidnappings involving Mafia figures takes a dark turn when one of their own is killed, leading Manucci on a personal quest for justice.

The full movie

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

40 thoughts on “Max’s Drive – In Movie – The Seven-Ups…”

  2. I remember the title but never saw the movie. Cool-looking car in the poster… Olds Cutlass maybe? I remember one time, back around end of ’80s, I was working night shift at a downtown hotel and two guys came in to counter, looking for someone, I think it might have been one of the bouncers in the building’s bars, can’t remember. What I do remember is they both pulled their badges out of pockets. One was non-descript middle-aged, middle everything guy, but the other I still remember – if I had to pick an actor to portray him, it would’ve been Danny devito- short, somewhat overweight, a little balding, dressed in , like construction clothes… man, now they could get into a lot of situations undetected, I mean REAL undercover.

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    1. Yea…those that go or went under cover…a dangerous damn job. I house sitted for my uncle when I was around 18…I was a little nervous to tell you the truth but had a great time. Nothing happened of course.
      One of the cars he was driving was a Poniac Vantura Coupe and a Pontiac Grand Ville… I love the backdrop to this movie…

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    1. Yes the chase is really good in this one! The best car chase I’ve ever seen was the 1974 B movie Gone In Sixty Seconds…it lasted for most of the movie. Not the remake… back then they just did it without permits or anything.

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  4. I’m sure I must have seen this way back when. Thanks for including the whole movie! I like Scheider as an actor. I’m surprised he wasn’t a bigger star. Wow I bet you heard a lot of good stories from your uncle. Those kinds of jobs always have them. Glad he survived his undercover career.

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    1. Yes he lived to be around 70…he was a fun guy to hang around and my favorite uncle…he always had my back in whatever I did.
      Lisa…go to youtube an that guys channel has all sorts of full movies on it free. I don’t know how he does it but he adds all of the time.
      This is a really good movie…not The French Connection but what is?

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      2. Yes…I love Bullitt, French Connection, and Dirty Harry. Great action packed movies…plus like you said about McQueen….the coolest actor to walk the earth

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      5. Some fun movies…some were B movies but I like those as well. I’m watching Junkman off of there…the main guy is the one that made Gone In Sixty Seconds…the original 74 movie.

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      7. H.B. Halicki… the budget for that movie was under I think 150,000 dollars…it made 40 million in 1974-75…I saw it when it came out and saw the real car…they had it in the lobby when I was 7.
        He died will making a movie in the 80s…a stunt gone wrong.

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      8. Oh wow quite a return on the investment. I can’t imagine how thrilled you were to see the real car. Those stunts have proven deadly over the years. Have you seen the Ryan Gosling movie, “The Fall Guy”? The movie isn’t super good, but it is considered a “love letter to stuntmen.” LOTS of great stunts in it.

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      9. No but I’ll watch…Bailey really likes his movies a lot….i’m sure he has it. We got Bailey a jacket one time just like the one Gosling wore in a movie… a white puffy jacket with a scorpion on the back…years ago.

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      11. Yeah, I still don’t get that Barbie movie at all. Yes that was the movie. I’m glad you reminded me. He loved that movie and still does.

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  5. Yes this is a 70’s good one. A cousin to “Connection” “Bullit”. which works for me. i might have to bust out a rewatch. Saw it in the theaters in the day.
    If anyone ever says “Hey Fulton” to me I’m going to knock them out.

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    1. Well I just spit my tea out while reading your last sentence…lay them out CB!
      A cousin is a good away to describe it the movie. He basically plays the same character…which I really liked…would love to see it on the big screen.

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  8. ‘Bullitt’ and ‘The Italian Job’ really made the car chase essential to the heist/good cop-bad guy genre.

    (I know what you mean about new movies trying to get ‘the look’ right and failing. I’ve watched a few and as a classic car fan I HATE it when the 8 or so immaculately polished background cars trucks etc are all recycled/reparked for every street scene. There should be a rust pocked Rambler or a dusty hard-worked F100 on screen as well, for reality’s sake. And if the movie is set in 1963 DON’T put a ’64 Mustang front and centre- that really grinds my gears.)

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    1. YES…that was a huge part in what I meant…you nailed it. They look brand new and cars didn’t look like that unless they were being waxed in the front yard of a suburban street.
      As you know…it wasn’t just New York…Nashville had that cold stark look with rusted junks rolling along everywhere. I would imagine most cities were like this.

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      1. We lived in a dingy dirty blue collar area and if a smart snazzy new car parked up in our street it would have a bunch of kids all oohing and aahing over it, looking at it, pointing out the chrome trim, talking animatedly to the proud owner. Meanwhile, me ‘n’ Bernie were bent low on the street side, jemmying off his hubcaps!

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      2. Get those hubcaps! Shiny and new. I grew up on a dirt road so washing your car was useless in the summertime. You would wash it and then someone would come down with a roll of dust that would choke you and then your car would be spotty all over. I never saw clean cars unless they just rolled out of the car wash and it didn’t last long.

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      3. Oh, I can understand about the dusty roads. As a young kid, 6-9, 10 we lived in a camp for new Immigrants to Australia, mostly of British people on the ’10 pound Pom’ scheme. (There’s a long story in itself, not for now.) Anyway, the jolly camp was made up of about a hundred quonset/nissen huts tucked away off the perimeter road, way way out in the back-blocks. (The camp was stuck between the abattoirs on one side and a mens prison up the hill. Nothing but the very best for the hardy folk who wanted to make Australia their happy home!) No paved roads, dusty, dirty, oppressive, hot as Hades in summer, cold as a debt-collectors heart in winter. Anyone lucky enough to own a car within the confines of the camp waited for the rare rain to fall rather than waste their time and water on washing it.

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      4. Yes…I can totally relate to that! Washing a car was a luxuary (we had well water) and a total waste of time. The way you described it I thought of Mad Max…very dreary sounding.

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  9. I remember this coming out after “The French Connection”, but I don’t think I ever saw it. I was under the impression that it was a sequel of sorts. I haven’t seen Roy Scheider in a ton of stuff, but have liked what I have seen. I remember seeing “All That Jazz” in the theater. “Showtime”. And speaking of “The French Connection”, R.I.P. Gene Hackman. What a great actor.

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    1. It is kinda. Scheider played a guy named Buddy…same first name and acted pretty much like he did in the French Connection.
      Yes I agree about Hackman…I didn’t know until I looked at my stats and all of a sudden The French Connection post I had went up in views….I then checked it out.

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    1. Yea I house sat their place…don’t think those black roses being delievered to his house didn’t make me think…”oh shit” what if they come here lol.

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  13. Good stuff, Max. I love this: ” It has that stark, cold landscape feel from the ’70s. You almost want to slip on a jacket while watching.“

    My husband really likes this film. A lot of people do. I just never really cared for it that much, but I agree it has one of the best car chase scenes.

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    1. Thank you Pam I appreciate it. Yes it wasn’t the best film in that genre and it is a little disjointed but something about it I liked. I really get lost in these films of that era. The location is another character.

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