Detective Story (1951)

Powerful, and i would say even more so, when it first came out drama. A ll the more remarkable in that for most of the time, it takes place on one set, a police station. Almost like a filmed play, which it was based upon.The acting from almost every one in the cast is good, especially Kirk Douglas who gives one of his ultimate trademark " Angry young man"portrayals and Eleanor Parker is nearly as good as his wife with a secret or two. I may be a little biased as i am a big Kirk Douglas fan, nobody could do the " simmering anger bubbling beneath the surface" part like him.A very under rated actor,a very good film, that can still pack a punch.

I just saw this great black and white movie for the first time last night. What a powerful movie and what a great cast!!! If someone had told me that this movie was a William Wyler movie, I would not have believed him, since it is so different from his other movies. Basically set in the intake and holding room of one NYC police precinct, it presents a large and diverse cast of powerful stories about miscreants (or would be miscreants) in a one basic location. This movie received Oscar nominations for: Best Actress--Elenor Parker Best Supporting Actres--Lee Grant in her first motion picture Best Director----William Wyler and Best Writing, Screenplay--Philip Yordan & Robert Wyler Is this movie the first of it kind in bringing many characters into (basically) a single room?? Kirk Douglas was at his best, as far as his raw physical acting is concerned. It came out about the same year as Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole. William Bendix also gives one of his best performances here too. Lee Grant is in the room for shoplifting a $6 purse. She is great as an "observer" of all the things going on around her as she waits to be "booked." In that way, she acts as sort of a Greek chorus to the main events. If I had seen this movie as an 8-year-old kid, I would have totally missed the wonderful magic of the movie and the way it was constructed. One of the central parts of the story has to do with illegal abortion, yet the word "abortion" is never used in the movie and probably would have been misunderstood if it had been. In 1951, probably few people even talked about.

William Wyler brings his famous sensitivity to this film adaptation of a successful Broadway play of the time. The mores around 1950 are so different from ours, that the main conflict seems overwrought in 2015. Lee Grant debuts in a role so utterly unlike what she played in the rest of her career. If you look carefully at the supporting players, you'll see actors you remember from great TV and high-end movies performances in the 1970s. This movie was made before the inundation of cop shows we have to day, and those tropes look fresh here. Eleanor Parker gives a great performance that will not remind you in any way of the Duchess in The Sound of Music. William Bendix plays a tough cop straight-- not for laughs in any way. Frank Faylen (Dobie Gillis's TV father and the cab driver in It's a Wonderful Life) gives a refreshing turn as a detective.

I'm 55 years old and I watched this film for the first time tonight, and ... well the title says it: Powerful, claustrophobic, intense, this is definitely 100 minutes you won't regret; and it could only ever have been done in black-and-white.Kirk Douglas is given reign to do what he does best without ever quite going overboard (as he was apt to do later on) and he's wonderfully supported by a cast that act out of their skins; particularly Horace McMahon, who I'd never heard of before watching this, but I'll be looking out for now, and a very young Lee Grant - probably more familiar to most as catch-all guest star of many 70's TV shows - who is almost unrecognisable in her role as the shoplifter/onlooker.Bendix, Parker, Wiseman, O'Donnell, Mohr... there are too many to list, but each plays their part to the hilt, and the result is a film-noir tale of the highest order. Yes, it has the feel of a play, and it might be difficult for younger viewers to understand the mores of the time; but it suspended my disbelief almost from the first frame and held it to the last.This is ensemble acting at its best, and if, like me, you somehow missed it along the way: go get a copy.