Freebie and The Bean | |
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Directed by | Richard Rush |
Produced by | Richard Rush |
Written by |
Robert Kaufman Floyd Mutrux |
Starring |
James Caan Alan Arkin Loretta Swit Jack Kruschen Christopher Morley Mike Kellin Alex Rocco Linda Marsh Valerie Harper |
Music by | Dominic Frontiere |
Cinematography | László Kovács |
Edited by |
Michael McLean Fredric Steinkamp |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date
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Running time
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113 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $30,000,000 |
Freebie and the Bean is a 1974 American action-comedy film about two off-beat police detectives who wreak havoc in San Francisco attempting to bring down a local organized crime boss. The picture, a precursor to the buddy cop film genre popularized a decade later, stars James Caan, Alan Arkin, Loretta Swit and Valerie Harper. Harper was nominated for the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year for playing the Hispanic wife of Alan Arkin. The film was directed by Richard Rush. An article in Rolling Stone magazine alleged that Stanley Kubrick called Freebie and the Bean the best film of 1974. Arkin and Caan would not appear in another movie together until the 2008 film adaptation of Get Smart.
Freebie and Bean are a pair of maverick detectives with the SFPD Intelligence Squad. The volatile gratuity-seeking Freebie is trying to get promoted to the vice squad to garner perks for his retirement while the neurotic and fastidious Bean has ambitions to make lieutenant. Against a backdrop of Super Bowl weekend in San Francisco, the partners are trying to conclude a 14-month investigation, digging through garbage to gather evidence against well-connected racketeer Red Meyers, when they discover that a hit man from Detroit is after Meyers as well. After rejecting their pretext arrest of Meyers to protect him, the district attorney orders them to keep him alive until Monday.