Detective Story

Outstanding Kirk Douglas Movie
Detective Story, based on a Broadway play, is one of Kirk Douglas' finest performances. Playing a New York city police detective, the movie plays out like a day-in-the life of Douglas' character and his precinct, with an assorted cast of characters.

But Douglas dominates the proceedings. His detective is full of razor-sharp anger and vitriol, which has carried over into his personal life. Douglas plays it to the hilt,and his supporting cast is excellent, including Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Joseph Wiseman, and Horace McMahon.

A mixture of police procedure, comedy, drama, and outright tragedy, Detective Story has been long overdue for DVD release.

Raw Depiction of Policework
Though adapted from a stageplay "Detective Story" feels neither stagey or dated. I attribute that to an excellent script that is centered on character developement and not as a straight police procedural. It's interesting as an examination of policework pre-Miranda. What is also interesting is that it is the earliest film to tackle, though implicitly, the issue of abortion that I can recall. Kirk Douglas' account of Jim McCloud, a detective so myopic that he sees no gray areas in fighting crime and allows it to spill into his personal life, gives one of the best performances of his career here. The underappreciated Eleanor Parker is excellent as McCloud's wife. William Bendix as McCloud's hard-drinking yet compassionate partner is also outstanding. Lee Grant and Joseph Wiseman give colorful turns as a shoplifter and burglar, respectively. Also noteworthy is the presence of George MacCready who later appeared with Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, "Paths of Glory", in...

Detective Story
Before "Homicide" or "Hill Street Blues" came this gritty, hard-hitting cop drama based on Sidney Kingsley's play. Honed to tense perfection by Wyler, the film is a showcase for fine, colorful ensemble acting by William Bendix (as the no-nonsense lieutenant), Lee Grant (reprising her role as a mousy shoplifter), Bert Freed (as McLeod's sensitive partner), and Joseph Wiseman (as a hilariously "innocent" Italian burglar). But it's Douglas's fierce, tragic performance as a modern lawman who still sees the world in stark black and white terms that provides the gut-twisting dramatic ironies. Absorbing and devastating, this "Story" gets under your skin and stays there.

Click to Editorial Reviews