• Rating:
• Genre: Drama
• Movie Type: Police Drama, Crime Drama
• Themes: Work Ethics, Crisis of Conscience
• Director: William Wyler
• Main Cast: Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Lee Grant, Bert Freed, George Macready, Cathy O'Donnell
• Release Year: 1951
• Country: US
• Run Time: 103 minutes

Plot

Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Detective Story was praised for its realistic view of an event-filled day in a single police precinct station. The film, directed by meticulous taskmaster William Wyler, manages to retain this realism, even allowing for the star-turn performance of Kirk Douglas. A stickler for the letter of the law, Detective James McLeod (Douglas) is not averse to using strong-arm methods on criminals and witnesses alike in bringing lawbreakers to justice. He is particularly rough on a first-time offender (Craig Hill), on whom the rest of the force is willing to go easy because of the anguish of his girlfriend (Cathy O'Donnell). But McLeod's strongest invective is reserved for shady abortion doctor Karl Schneider (George MacReady); McLeod all but ruins the case against Schneider by beating him up in the patrol wagon. When McLeod discovers that his own wife (Eleanor Parker) had many years earlier lost a baby in one of Schneider's operations, and that the baby's father was gangster Tami Giacoppetti (Gerald Mohr), it is too much for the detective to bear. Punctuating the grim proceedings with brief moments of humor is future Oscar winner Lee Grant, reprising her stage role as a timorous shoplifter; it would be her last Hollywood assignment until the early 1960s, thanks to the iniquities of the blacklist. Despite small concessions to Hollywood censorship, Detective Story largely upheld the power of its theatrical original, and it forms a clear precursor to such latter-day urban police dramas as NYPD Blue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Review

William Wyler's Detective Story was one of the more shocking and compelling dramas of its period, and a film that raised a number of issues for audiences. Anyone who thinks that Hollywood in the 1950s put out nothing but safe, unchallenging movies can start rethinking that notion with this film, whose script is filled with moral mine fields in just about every scene, along with questions about devotion to duty, the role of independent action and free will, and enough ambiguities about right and wrong to make the most rigid personalities start questioning their motives. The script, based on Sidney Kingsley's play of the same name, is potent enough, and Kirk Douglas delivers another anti-hero star turn (in a manner reminiscent of his work in Champion) as the self-destructive police detective. He gets impeccable support from a cast made up of Hollywood veterans (William Bendix, George Macready, Frank Faylen, and Horace McMahon, who landed an almost identical role in the TV version of The Naked City from his work here) and up-and-coming New York theater talent (Lee Grant, Joseph Wiseman) working at their peaks of performance. Audiences expecting a police proceedural or a clean, neat drama instead got the station house equivalent of From Here To Eternity or On The Waterfront. Detective Story's reputation has endured for decades, and it was successful enough in its time to yield a parody by The Three Stooges; it was also one of the sources of the hit TV series Barney Miller 25 years later, which transposed the same setting and dramatic material into a more comic vein. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Kirk Douglas - Detective James McLeod
• Eleanor Parker - Mary McLeod
• William Bendix - Det. Lou Brody
• Lee Grant - Shoplifter
• Bert Freed - Det. Dakis
• George Macready - Karl Schneider
• Cathy O'Donnell - Susan Carmichael

Frank Faylen - Det. Gallagher; Joseph Wiseman - Charley Gennini, Burglar; Grandon Rhodes - Det. O'Brien; Luis Van Rooten - Joe Feinson, Reporter; Craig Hill - Arthur Kindred; Horace McMahon - Lieutenant Monaghan; Warner Anderson - Endicott Sims; Michael Strong - Lewis Abbott; Russ Evans - Patrolman Barnes; Gladys George - Miss Hatch; Burt Mustin - Janitor; James Maloney - Mr. Pritchett; Gerald Mohr - Tami Giacoppetti; Edmund Cobb - Ed, Detective; Ann Codee - Frenchwoman; Catherine Doucet - Mrs. Farragut; Pat Flaherty - Desk Sergeant; Donald Kerr - Taxi Driver; Mike Mahoney - Coleman; Lee Miller - Policeman; Ralph Montgomery - Finney; William "Bill" Phillips - Det. Pat Callahan; Jack Shea - Desk Sergeant; Harper Goff - Gallantz; Howard Joslin - Patrolman Keogh; Charles Campbell - Newspaper Photographer; Bob Scott - Mulvey; Kay Wiley - Hysterical Woman

Credit

Lee Garmes - Cinematographer; Edith Head - Costume Designer; Earl Hedrick - Art Director; Emile Kuri - Set Designer; Hal Pereira - Art Director; Robert Swink - Editor; Wally Westmore - Makeup; Robert Wyler - Associate Producer; Robert Wyler - Screenwriter; William Wyler - Director; William Wyler - Producer; Philip Yordan - Screenwriter; Sidney Kingsley - Play Author

Similar Movies

The Blue Lamp; City That Never Sleeps; The New Centurions; Hill Street Blues [TV Series]; NYPD Blue [TV Series]; Homicide

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