Detective Story

"The love story of a man whose wife was more woman than angel!"

1951 1h 43m EN

👍

7.0

SOLID

★7.0TMDB · 172

CrimeDrama

Synopsis

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Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.

“The love story of a man whose wife was more woman than angel!”

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Cast

Kirk Douglas
Det. James McLeod
Eleanor Parker
Mary McLeod
William Bendix
Det. Lou Brody
Cathy O'Donnell
Susan Carmichael
George Macready
Karl Schneider
Horace McMahon
Lt. Monaghan
Gladys George
Miss Hatch
Joseph Wiseman
Charley Gennini

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: William Wyler
Writers: Philip Yordan, Robert Wyler
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 6

ERA

Did you know

75 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 6

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by William Wyler, shot by Lee Garmes. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 6

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Robert Swink shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 6

CAST

Did you know

Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker and William Bendix carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 6

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "The love story of a man whose wife was more woman than angel!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 6

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0043465 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

Cinephile deep dive

The take

William Wyler directs. Lee Garmes behind the camera. Robert Swink cuts. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

175 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2Directed by William Wyler, shot by Lee Garmes. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Editor Robert Swink shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
4Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker and William Bendix carry the top of the cast.
5Marketing tagline: "The love story of a man whose wife was more woman than angel!".
6IMDB entry: tt0043465 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
7Classified under 17 themes, including "marriage crisis", "suppressed past", "detective", "detective story".

The technical file

Cinematography: Lee Garmes
Editing: Robert Swink
Costume design: Edith Head
Makeup / hair: William Woods
Runtime: 103 min · 1h 43m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
IMDB: Detective Story (1951)

Awards

National Board of Review: Top Ten Films

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

William Wyler

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2020-01-22
★ 8/10
It's intense at the 21st Precinct. An assortment of detectives and an assortment of criminals, all gathered together under the oppressive 21st Precint roof. It's a day that nobody present will ever forget - for better or worse... Directed by William Wyler (Best years Of Our Lives, Ben-Hur & Wuthering Heights) and starring Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Cathy O'Donnell and Joseph Wiseman. Detective Story is based on the smash hit Broadway play by Sidney Kingsley, adapted by Phillip Yordan and Robert Wyler, it's with much relief to me that the worry of it being a stagy production never actually materialises. Practically set on one bleak, but quite excellently appropriate set (creation courtesy of Hal Pereira & Earl Hedrick), Detective Story manages to rise above the very simple plot by boasting interesting characters in a pot boiling story just waiting to reach its peak. Each character has much to offer the film, be it oddly quirky or overtly intense, within the confines of this particular precinct, the characters create engrossing drama. It's a difficult film to sell without giving too much away, by outlaying the character persona's and mental fortitude's, I personally feel that it will dull the impact of this influential crime genre piece. It's got real raw emotive acting, particularly from Kirk Douglas as Jim McLeod and Eleanor Parker as his wife Mary, while the technical aspects (watch Lee Garmes' camera glide like a third party witness) are impressively high. And with it embracing as it does, morality themes, it also doesn't lack for interest to the cranial head scratching crowd. It's by definition to me an all encompassing picture, one that is now sure to be a perennial viewing in my home. It's not a standard crime picture, and it most definitely is a talky film, but this works incredibly well, so one can only hope that many others will feel the same as myself, in that namely that it is indeed a fine and essential genre piece. 8/10

Production companies