Detective Story (1951)

Good movie but grossly overrated

Excellent but underrated film

A different way of telling a story

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I just saw this great black and white movie for the first time last night. What a powerful movie and what a great cast!!! If someone had told me that this movie was a William Wyler movie, I would not have believed him, since it is so different from his other movies. Basically set in the intake and holding room of one NYC police precinct, it presents a large and diverse cast of powerful stories about miscreants (or would be miscreants) in a one basic location. This movie received Oscar nominations for: Best Actress--Elenor Parker Best Supporting Actres--Lee Grant in her first motion picture Best Director----William Wyler and Best Writing, Screenplay--Philip Yordan & Robert Wyler Is this movie the first of it kind in bringing many characters into (basically) a single room?? Kirk Douglas was at his best, as far as his raw physical acting is concerned. It came out about the same year as Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole. William Bendix also gives one of his best performances here too. Lee Grant is in the room for shoplifting a $6 purse. She is great as an "observer" of all the things going on around her as she waits to be "booked." In that way, she acts as sort of a Greek chorus to the main events. If I had seen this movie as an 8-year-old kid, I would have totally missed the wonderful magic of the movie and the way it was constructed. One of the central parts of the story has to do with illegal abortion, yet the word "abortion" is never used in the movie and probably would have been misunderstood if it had been. In 1951, probably few people even talked about.

What is someone supposed to do when he realizes that he has been living a lie? That everything he values is a fraud? These are the questions that this story raises. Kirk Douglas gives another incredibly strong and compelling performance, this time as a police detective whose arrogance and pride blocks him from realizing the realities and shortcomings of his own life. The story is a tragedy. The principle character has many virtues but is brought down by his character flaws. He is on a personal crusade, not knowing, or refusing to acknowledge, the real target of his scorn. To face the truth would mean to question the purpose of his life, and whether his life his worth living. The production is stagy, the story a little contrived, but Kirk Douglas and the rest of the cast, including Eleanor Parker, manage to transcend those limitations and deliver performances that galvanize the story and keep the audience engaged. This movie is outstanding.

This film is an anachronism especially with Kirk Douglas's overly melodramatic delivery, it was as if he was in the play trying to reach the cheap seats . His moral outrage calling his wife a tramp for her past might have played well then but not today. His vacillation between moral outrage towards his wife then softening due to feelings of romantic love then back to outrage was ultimately shallow. His lack of subtlety in his jealousy and knowing that others knew what she had done, you knew and she knew he would never forgive her, he is that shallow. Ultimately this is a shallow performance reflective of the 50's that doesn't work well today. The Moral ambiguity in Detour for example is universal due to showing it rather than the preachyness of Kirk Douglas's character in this film. Or its simply that this movie has strong characters with strong statements that are now dated. The characters such as Lee Grants shoplifter and Charlie are under developed despite having considerable screen time. Was the shoplifter mentally ill or just quirky? Was Charlie Italian? Seemed so but he couldn't pull off even a clichéd Italian characterization. All in all a Detective story is definitely watchable but history has not been kind to this movie.

William Wyler directed this police film, based on a stage play, that stars Kirk Douglas as detective James Macleod, a no-nonsense New York cop who is beset with all kinds of suspects on an eventful day, like a shoplifter(played by Lee Grant) and a burglar(played by Joseph Wiseman) but has his sights set on a callous abortionist named Schneider(played by George Macready) whose lawyer objects to James, and insists he has a personal reason for persecuting him, which is denied, but it turns out that his wife Mary(played by Eleanor Parker) has a dark secret she's withheld from James, with tragic consequences... William Bendix costars as a fellow detective and concerned friend. Though melodramatic, it contains powerful acting and skillful direction that make up for it.