- In San Francisco, California, one victim in a mass murder is a police detective. His partner and a new partner investigate in the city's seamy side.
- A San Francisco city bus with eight passengers and the driver pulls out of a downtown bus station and moves through the city stopping once for a new passenger. The passenger, unseen above the chest, walks to the back of the bus pulls the pieces of a sub-machine gun from a tote bag, assembles them, and massacres the eight passengers and the driver. The bus crashes and the killer walks away. Driving onto the scene are homicide detectives Jake Martin (Walter Matthau), Leo Larsen (Bruce Dern), and James Larrinore (Lou Gosset). As they search the bus, they find that ones of the bodies is that of Dave Evans (Anthony Costello), Martin's police partner. It is the search for the murderer and the reason for Evans' presence on the bus that pairs detective Martin and Larsen together. With help from Evan's girlfriend Kay Butler (Cathy Lee Crosby), they determine that Evans was following leads to close a murder case which Martin, sixteen years on the force, was unable to solve two years previous. Thed search takes the two detectives to most of the seamy sides of San Francisco, with its hustlers, porno theatres, topless and gay bars, boarding-houses and restaurants, from the rankest to the plushest. Aware that he has been forced upon Martin, that Larsen, a veteran detective in his early 30's , tough, mischievous, blunt and slightly crass, does his best to make his replacement of Evans as subtle as possible. Martin, withdrawing into himself, ignores Larsen. In the pursuit of Evans' leads, Mratin discovers a bizarre possible solution linking the unsolved murder and the bus massacre. Unable, by the lack of evidence to explain his theory to Larsen, he attempts to convince him to pursue his theory and deviate from the the instructions of their superiors. At first, Larsen refuses, but as his respect for Martin and his unorthodox police procedure increases, Larsen agrees and the two policemen set out to trap the mass murderer.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
- In San Francisco, eight passengers and the driver of a bus are killed by a passenger with machine gun. Police detectives Jake Martin, Leo Larsen and James Larrimore find the body of Martin's partner Dave Evans among the victims. Lieutenant Steiner assigns Larsen to be the new partner of Martin, who is obsessed by the murder of his former partner. He meets Evans' girlfriend that believed he was working in overtime with Martin. Now the detective is convinced that Evans was investigating the wealthy Camerero, who was the prime suspect of a murder case two years ago.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- A policeman is among the victims when the passengers of a late-night bus are machine-gunned. With only one semi- conscious survivor and no other witnesses, the detectives try to learn from the identities of the dead why this happened and who the killer could be. The climax includes an excellent chase.—David Carroll <davidc@atom.ansto.gov.au>
- An off-duty policeman is among the victims of a massacre on a town bus in San Francisco, and unearthing the person responsible becomes the task of SFPD Lieutenant Jake Martin, his parter Leo Larsen, and a squad of department detectives, who work to learn the victims' identities in the hope that it will lead to clues to the killer. The investigation, however, repeatedly leads to dead ends, until the death of a young woman involved with one of the victims, Gus Niles, unearths a partnership between Niles and another man who has been investigated in the past. Martin, with the reluctant help of Leo Larsen, decides to smoke out the bus killer, a move that leaves him in danger when the killer has another bus in the sights of his sub-machine gun.—Michael Daly
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By what name was The Laughing Policeman (1973) officially released in India in English?
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