On D List of Movie Reviews

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Detective Story (1951)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 10/21

10/21: If there were awards given out for melodrama, Detective Story would've been a big winner in 1951.

A play right from the outset, the whole thing is nothing like reality. For starters, arrested criminals are held in cells, not on the same floor with detectives for hours. That way, their chance of potential influence and impulse to do something terrible will be cut down to almost nil. Hence, Arthur gets his day in court, and Detective Jim McLeod returns home alive.

Starting off the melodrama is Lee Grant who overacts in her screen debut and is as pathetic as her character. Then, there's the newcomer Joseph Wiseman who puts on a performance that will never be found in real life. Finally, Kirk Douglas gets his turn to do the same by making everything so damn funny in the last twenty minutes. I was laughing at him when he was desperate to be killed after finding out how much of a whore his wife turned out to be.

I'll never understand what the people were thinking back then when they handed out Oscar nominations to Eleanor Parker for Best Actress, Lee Grant for Best Supporting Actress, Philip Yordan and Robert Wyler for Best Writing, and William Wyler (I'm surprised at him for being involved with such rubbish) for Best Direction. They're all bad...so bad in a camp way. Even one said, "If I wanted to see the play, I would go to Broadway." Why can't these simpleminded folks say the word "abortionist" just to get it over with?

All in all, Detective Story is best left behind in a trash heap of dated cop melodrama.

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