This film is a revealing portrait of a tough cop with a big heart. Sergeant Bernie "Whistling" Smith walks the beat on Vancouver's Eastside, the hangout of petty criminals, down-and-outs and a variety of characters. His policing is unorthodox. To many drug users, petty thieves and prostitutes in this economically depressed area he is more than the iron hand of the law, he is also a counsellor and a friend.
Bernie Smith
Donald Brittain
Narrator
This film is a revealing portrait of a tough cop with a big heart. Sergeant Bernie "Whistling" Smith walks the beat on Vancouver's Eastside, the hangout of petty criminals, down-and-outs and a variety of characters. His policing is unorthodox. To many drug users, petty thieves and prostitutes in this economically depressed area he is more than the iron hand of the law, he is also a counsellor and a friend.
Almost fifty years later, this is still quite an interesting look at the much more hands-on approach to urban policing taken by Sgt. Bernie Smith. He prefers to walk the beat of his central Vancouver district and apparently acts as a significant deterrent to the street crime that prevails. Mostly hookers and drug addicts - vanilla essence is the drug du jour! His methods are at best unorthodox, and he does like the sound of his own voice as he basically takes the view that they must move on to become somebody else's problem. The documentary style of presentation with just him and a film crew does offer us quite an intimate glimpse of the poverty and addiction levels in his part of town. We meet some of the people who unwillingly perpetuate this vicious circle of supply and demand and see his attempts at keeping this under control. His technique did remind me a little of sweeping leaves from a porch. It must be done every day and the chances are the same leaves will be back next day as he repeats the exercise. This is a film about the effectiveness of visible and respected policing that merits half an hour of your time, even if we wouldn't recognise this kind of operating very readily now.
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