Detective Story

DETECTIVE STORY (12)

D: William Wyler

Paramount (William Wyler)

US 🇺🇸 1951

103 mins

Drama

W: Robert Wyler & Philip Yordan [based on the play by Sidney Kingsley]

DP: Lee Garmes

Ed: Robert Swink

Mus: Miklos Rozsa & Victor Young

Kirk Douglas (Det. Jim McLeod), Eleanor Parker (Mary McLeod), William Bendix (Det. Lou Brody), Cathy O’Donnell (Susan Carmichael), George Macready (Dr. Karl Schneider), Joseph Wiseman (Charley Gennini), Lee Grant (Shoplifter)

Set in a police station bullpen over the course of an evening, Kirk Douglas plays the lead as a hard-bitten detective who performs his duties with an iron fist and doesn’t understand the meaning of the word leniency, especially when it comes to his desire to pin charges on Karl Schneider, a doctor who has been carrying out a clandestine operation to provide abortions, a highly controversial topic when the film was released in 1951 (and even still now in certain circles).

Things become even more personal for the cynical detective when it emerges that his own wife was one of the doctors previous patients.

The stage play origins are apparent, but the dialogue and performances are more than enough to make this cinematic, especially when coupled with William Wyler’s atmospheric direction and Lee Garmes’ moody black & white cinematography.

The most remarkable thing of all is that, in this portrayal of a “man’s world”, it’s two female performances that steal the limelight, with both Eleanor Parker & Lee Grant receiving Oscar nominations for their work.

7/10