DETECTIVE STORY
US, 1951, 103 minutes, Black and white.
Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, George Macready, Cathy O’ Donnell, Horace Mc Mahon, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant, Gladys George.
Directed by William Wyler.
Detective Story was one of the most impressive films of 1951. It presented a day in a New York police station and showed a detective becoming obsessed with his duty. He discovers a blemish in his family and he becomes a victim of violence. This has almost a destructive effect on him. Some have suggested that the ingredients of Greek tragedy have been transferred to a contemporary situation.
The screenplay was written by Phillip Yordan from a play by Sidney Kingsley. Photography was by Lee Garmes and direction by William Wyler, the director of so many striking films over many decades. At this period of his life he made The Heiress and Carrie. The film had an excellent role for Kirk Douglas in the early years of his career and strong support from Eleanor Parker and William Bendix. Joseph Wiseman and Lee Grant stand out. Lee Grant was to receive an Oscar nomination for her small role. However, she did not emerge as a well known serious screen actress till the sixties and especially in the seventies. She won an Oscar for her role in Shampoo. Detective Story is strong material even for the fifties, and stands up very well today.
1. What did the title indicate? How ironic was it when this particular story unfolded? What comment did this make on the traditional detective films and the typical American film cop? How pessimistic a film was this? How outspoken about real issues in the early fifties?
2. The film was based on a play. Was this evident? The fact that so much plot and so much characterization was compressed into a short time?
3. How did the film use the shoplifter as a cause to what was going on? How well portrayed was the shoplifter? What comments did she make about the life of the police and their work in this precinct?
4. What were your first impressions of the detective? Jim as tough and unrelenting? His pushing lawyers about? His sense of dedication? Did you think he was genuine and sincere? Or did he seem off balance?
5. What were the qualities of Kirk Douglas’s performance in this role, to show the perplexity of this particular detective?
6. How was his friend Lou a balance to this picture of the detective? Lou obeyed the rules but he was also humane. What contrast was evident here in the picture of the police? Lou versus Jim? How was the police lieutenant also a contrast with this? His efficiency in doing his job? His need for supervising the behaviour of the various men under him?
7 What were your impressions of the abortionist? How evilly was he presented? Was this fair? Was it understandable why Jim was pursuing him? And why this was becoming an obsession with Jim?
8 How well presented was the love between Jim and Mary? How genuine was her love? Did it seem conventional at the beginning? If so, how did this change? How important was it to show Jim in his relation with Mary as a contrast to his dedication to his work?
9. What was the purpose of having the psychotic killer sitting in the precinct? How evil was he and repellent?
How important was it to create this atmosphere, in view of what was to happen at the end?
10. The importance of the young man and his arrest? In Jim’s laying down the letter of the law and his brutal
treatment of him? Where were audience sympathies at this stage? The importance of the girl friend, Susan? Her pleading with Jim and his unwillingness to listen to her? Did this indicate how the film would progress?
11. What were your impressions when the lawyer used Mary? In view of what was to happen to Jim? With our knowledge of his black and white views?
12. The way that the lieutenant tried to keep Jim out of it? and when he was unrelenting, hi s confronting Jim with the situation? How ironic was it that Mary had been to the villainous abortionist?
13. How was the psychosis becoming more and more manifest in Jim? How frightening was this? How well were the following sequences between Mary and Jim handled? The first discovery that Mary was involved? Jim’s shock at her being involved? His revulsion and suspicions? Her pleading and inability to move him? The attempts at reconciliation and his manifestation that he needed her? The portrayal of this and the dominance of his obsession?
Did Mary have any other choice but to walk out on the man she loved? The effect of this on her? The effect of this on him?
14. How did the psychosis begin to break out on Jim? How did he begin to go to pieces? His reaction to the abortionist? His reaction to the young man and the girl? Was he ready for death? Had he lived, how could he have lived?
15. Was the dramatic event and the precinct credible or not? The breaking out of the maniac? The shooting of Jim? How symbolic of his whole life was this, being shot and dying?
16. What was the meaning of his death? Did he get any enlightenment as to his obsessions and his sense of justice in his death?
17. How tragic was this film? How realistic?
18. How humane was this film? Its insights into human nature and its perplexity? Its insight into self achievement? Justice? Love arid hate? Self love and self hate? How insightful a film was it?
