Cops A to Z

17:26 – The Finale

The grand finale. Buster dashes into a doorway, which turns out to be the 5th Precinct Police Station! Does the ‘street’ look like large panels of plywood?

The cops chase after him, but clever Buster exits wearing a police uniform and locks them all inside. Notice the foreground shadows.

When Virginia walks by and rejects him, Buster accepts his fate, unlocks the door, and turns himself in – fade to black.

Remarkably, except for the finale, every scene from Cops has been identified, verified with vintage maps, local and aerial photographs, telephone directories, and clues from other movies.

Admittedly, the finale could have been filmed at an unrelated studio. But of the four studios we know to appear during the film, Buster’s home studio backlot seems the most likely. The precinct wall stands far from the camera, the apparent late afternoon sun and shadows suggest we are looking east at a west-facing set. Contemporary aerial photos of the Brunton (United) Studio show the backlot was heavily built, tightly spaced, eliminating it as a likely choice. Likewise, aerial views of the Goldwyn backlot do not show a suitable spot for the scene. Further, the scenes we do know to be filmed at Goldwyn employ far more extras dressed as cops. Fewer extras appear during the finale, but they were filmed storming into the precinct building in waves to suggest a larger crowd. If the finale had been filmed at Goldwyn it would likely have shown more cops at once on screen.

Look closely, the scene at Goldwyn to the left has more than twice as many cops as the finale.

The east side of the Metro street backlot faces west, matching the sun and shadows. But these sets were more elaborate and were somewhat permanent, as they appear in later aerial photos taken after Cops was completed (see below).

The finale set is less ornate, more ‘temporary’ in appearance. The camera stands far back and looks down on the set, as if from a tower. The shadow of what could be a camera tower appears in the foreground. Further, the surface of the ‘street’ appears to be large rectangles. Perhaps these are the large rectangular wooden panels that formed the surface of Buster’s outdoor-above ground shooting stage, pictured below with the snow-bank set Buster built after Cops for The Frozen North.

I don’t consider this definitive proof, but compared to the other three candidate studios; Brunton (United), Goldwyn, and Metro, it seems most plausible Buster built the finale set on his open air shooting stage, filming the scene from a tower similar to the one highlighted here in red. For comparison, a set on the Metro backlot is highlighted in orange.

18:09   The End tombstone with Buster’s porkpie hat.