When screen legend Paul Newman passed away last fall, most critics praised him for his more than half a century of memorable performances, which included nine Academy Award nominations. However, very few may have even heard of his marvelous performance as John Murphy, a New York City street cop in director Daniel Petrie’s 1981 little-seen gem, Fort Apache the Bronx.

Fort Apache the Bronx takes us through several months in the lives of the city’s finest men in blue in New York’s 41st precinct. As one of the city’s roughest areas, the 40-square-block district is populated with 70,000 people and has the largest portion of non-English speakers in the city. Each day, John Murphy and his partner, Andy Corelli (Ken Wahl), encounter some of the Big Apple’s most rotten citizens: hookers, pimps, gamblers and suicide victims, while delivering babies, chasing purse snatchers and defusing potential riots.

Screenwriter Heywood Gould creates a very effective mix of melodramatic police procedures and many compelling personal aspects of the lives of the cops. Newman’s Murphy is more than just the routine divorced, tough, beer-drinking, big-city Irish cop. Murphy balances a cynical “live and let live” professional philosophy with a strong sense of justice. When the 41st gets the new by-the-numbers Captain Connolly (Ed Asner), who demands precise, proactive procedures to solving the area’s criminal activities, Murphy reluctantly goes along. Newman’s performance is simultaneously realistic, comical and especially charming in a relationship he develops with a beautiful Latina emergency room nurse, played by the always reliable Rachel Ticotin. The film’s supporting cast is loaded with solid performances by Danny Aiello, Pam Grier and Sully Boyar. Although Newman received an Oscar nomination in 1981 for Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice, his John Murphy is most certainly one of his greatest performances as well, even if overlooked.