Detective Story (1951)

the audience applauded

People are voting emotionally.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Powerful, and i would say even more so, when it first came out drama. A ll the more remarkable in that for most of the time, it takes place on one set, a police station. Almost like a filmed play, which it was based upon.The acting from almost every one in the cast is good, especially Kirk Douglas who gives one of his ultimate trademark " Angry young man"portrayals and Eleanor Parker is nearly as good as his wife with a secret or two. I may be a little biased as i am a big Kirk Douglas fan, nobody could do the " simmering anger bubbling beneath the surface" part like him.A very under rated actor,a very good film, that can still pack a punch.

DETECTIVE STORY is one of those thrillers that takes place over the course of a single day, a bit like an old-fashioned 24. Thus the premise is a decent one - a police station is the setting for about 90% of the story - and the web of lies, deceit, and conflict that arises from the arrest of a back street abortionist is well crafted and expertly staged. And when I say staged, I mean it; this was an adaptation of a popular stage play, which is apparent in the single location nature of the thing.It's an interesting little work that plays out as a character piece for the most part. Kirk Douglas appears in a star-making turn as the stressed-out detective who becomes more and more personally involved with his case. He has the everyman likability of his son Michael here, and is completely believable in the part. The supporting cast is a delightful mix of laconics, wiseguys, and eccentrics, and incorporates the familiar faces of Lee Grant, Bert Freed, William Bendix, and future spaghetti western star Craig Hill. Overall, though, it's director William Wyler (ROMAN HOLIDAY) who keeps the whole thing taut and bubbling merrily along.

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.

The detective in question is Kirk Douglas' Jim McGuire, a literally take-no-prisoners detective in a tough New York precinct. His zero-tolerance approach to crime as against the more understanding outlook of his fellow detectives remains topical today of course. The film takes the viewer through a 24 hour time-period in the station and as such can be sen as a precursor of quality TV cop-shows from "Hill Street Blues" onwards.To be sure, it occasionally shows its theatrical origins with its set-bound scenario and occasionally moralistic and speechy dialogue, but for the most part the characters ring true as people rather than types, with their words both street-smart and sharp. It also introduces the tricky subject of back-street abortionist practices, although naturally the word abortion itself doesn't make it past the censor's cut.Stories, characters, scenes and at times, dialogue overlap to give a workaday, vernacular feel to proceedings and the acting throughout is committed and yet natural. It obviously helped that a lot of the supporting roles are filled by cast members of the long-running Broadway play which sourced the film.In the two leads Douglas and Parker are both excellent although their parts are a little unevenly written at times. Those look like real tears they're both shedding however in their climactic scene and while the ending is a touch melodramatic, somewhat contradicting the realism of what had gone before, it at least gets across its moral point with Douglas' last minute conversion to humaneness.The supporting cast are excellent, especially the actors playing the cops, lending a palpable "fly-on-the-wall" feel to director Wyler's proceedings. In conclusion, a fine film, although I wasn't sure if I'd enjoyed a theatrical rather than a cinematic experience by the final reel.