"Detective Story" is a great, absorbing film. "A policeman's lot is not a happy one," to quote Gilbert and Sullivan. The movie has been called sometimes simply a filmed stage play. Some of the greatest films are filmed stage plays - "Ladies in Retirement," for instance, "The Big Knife," Bogart's "Dead End" and "Petrified Forrest." A story confined to a minimal space becomes more acute. Concentrate on the characters; the actors alone hold our attention. This requires, of course, great acting. "Detective Story" has it. William Wyler wisely hired four of the play's cast, including Horace McMahon, Lee Grant and Joseph Wiseman. Wiseman, some say, overacts. I disagree. His outlaw needs to be over the top, to complement Kirk Douglas' manic lawman. They are the flip sides of each other. One, the cop, is obsessed with his duty, or what in his warped vision he conceives to be his duty, to cleanse the world of dirt, of imperfection (including his wife's imperfection, when he finds her to be imperfect). A vicariously suicidal end (shades of "Petrified Forrest") gives him release. The other is driven by the opposite obsession. He cannot, four-time loser, stop dirtying the world. He too effectively commits suicide, knowing that he will get the electric chair. One has a mania to sanitize. The other has a mania to pollute.
Joseph Wiseman owned his role. He did it on the stage and on the screen. The other role was done on the stage by Ralph Bellamy. I regret, I was as yet only a fetus when the play played. I cannot imagine somehow Ralph Bellamy in the part. I guess he did it well, since the play was a hit. Apparently, Alan Ladd was considered for the movie. That would have been a disaster. Kirk Douglas took the role. I would have taken Robert Ryan. Ryan played the same sort of role in Nicholas Ray's "On Dangerous Ground," though his overstressed detective is not literally insane. Douglas' Jim McLeod undoubtedly is. He has not been unhinged by his policeman's metier. He has chosen his metier to act out his insanity. He is deranged, tormented by memories of the mother he failed to protect from a hated father figure. He says it himself. He transfers his hatred, he "protects" society from anyone he in turn can brutalize. Douglas is not bad in the part. But Robert Ryan, mesmerizing eyes and subtly venomous voice, would have been stupendous.
Eleanor Parker deserved her Oscar nomination. She is genuinely moving, especially as she realizes, twice, that her husband cannot be cured, that he is possessed. His mania overrides his love. She certainly out-acts Kirk Douglas in their scenes together. Do we really feel sorry for him? We pity her. George Macready is exceptionally good. He makes his character human. Macready was adept at playing unregenerate villains (see "Paths of Glory," again with Kirk Douglas). He does not play it villainously here. He keeps his gaze lowered. His voice is subdued, even in his paddy-wagon confrontation with Douglas. Note that William Wyler has the camera film him as much as possible from the left side, to hide the sinister scar on his right cheek. Is he a wanton butcher of young women, as Jim McLeod screams? Or is he just compelled to operate, pre-Roe-v-Wade, in unsound conditions? McLeod, remember, is insane. An abortion doctor is a perfect object of transference for his Oedipal fixation. (For a harrowing story of abortion, in a Hollywood memoir, read Mercedes McCambridge's autobiography.) Cathy O'Donnell, as always, is radiant. Lee Grant and Frank Faylen lighten the tension, but without overdoing it. Some producer clearly remarked Faylen's performance; he reprised his exact role of a friendly dispatcher in Phil Karlson's noir, "99 River Street."
I am not sure "Detective Story" should be called a film noir. It is, if such a thing exists, a film gris - a film noir with a liberal message. The message here is a warning: society is at war with itself. It turns its dispossessed into predators. It turns its cops into brutes. It devours itself. Lee Grant, for one, was devoured. Immediately after receiving the Academy's congratulations in the form of an Oscar nomination, she was blacklisted forthwith.
Joseph Wiseman owned his role. He did it on the stage and on the screen. The other role was done on the stage by Ralph Bellamy. I regret, I was as yet only a fetus when the play played. I cannot imagine somehow Ralph Bellamy in the part. I guess he did it well, since the play was a hit. Apparently, Alan Ladd was considered for the movie. That would have been a disaster. Kirk Douglas took the role. I would have taken Robert Ryan. Ryan played the same sort of role in Nicholas Ray's "On Dangerous Ground," though his overstressed detective is not literally insane. Douglas' Jim McLeod undoubtedly is. He has not been unhinged by his policeman's metier. He has chosen his metier to act out his insanity. He is deranged, tormented by memories of the mother he failed to protect from a hated father figure. He says it himself. He transfers his hatred, he "protects" society from anyone he in turn can brutalize. Douglas is not bad in the part. But Robert Ryan, mesmerizing eyes and subtly venomous voice, would have been stupendous.
Eleanor Parker deserved her Oscar nomination. She is genuinely moving, especially as she realizes, twice, that her husband cannot be cured, that he is possessed. His mania overrides his love. She certainly out-acts Kirk Douglas in their scenes together. Do we really feel sorry for him? We pity her. George Macready is exceptionally good. He makes his character human. Macready was adept at playing unregenerate villains (see "Paths of Glory," again with Kirk Douglas). He does not play it villainously here. He keeps his gaze lowered. His voice is subdued, even in his paddy-wagon confrontation with Douglas. Note that William Wyler has the camera film him as much as possible from the left side, to hide the sinister scar on his right cheek. Is he a wanton butcher of young women, as Jim McLeod screams? Or is he just compelled to operate, pre-Roe-v-Wade, in unsound conditions? McLeod, remember, is insane. An abortion doctor is a perfect object of transference for his Oedipal fixation. (For a harrowing story of abortion, in a Hollywood memoir, read Mercedes McCambridge's autobiography.) Cathy O'Donnell, as always, is radiant. Lee Grant and Frank Faylen lighten the tension, but without overdoing it. Some producer clearly remarked Faylen's performance; he reprised his exact role of a friendly dispatcher in Phil Karlson's noir, "99 River Street."
I am not sure "Detective Story" should be called a film noir. It is, if such a thing exists, a film gris - a film noir with a liberal message. The message here is a warning: society is at war with itself. It turns its dispossessed into predators. It turns its cops into brutes. It devours itself. Lee Grant, for one, was devoured. Immediately after receiving the Academy's congratulations in the form of an Oscar nomination, she was blacklisted forthwith.