- Based on a play by Sidney Kingsley, William Wyler's Detective Story is a unique drama set almost entirely in a police station. At the film's start, Detective Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas) promises his adoring wife Mary (Eleanor Parker) that he'll be home in an hour. What initially seems like Jim's intense dedication to his job, however, eventually reveals itself to be a full-blown mania in which he can't help but harass every criminal within reach. Some of the crooks, like a pair of dopey burglars (Joseph Wiseman, Michael Strong), deserve to be put away. Others, like a desperate first-timer named Arthur (Craig Hill), just made a bad mistake. Jim intends to make them all pay, regardless of the details.
- One criminal, a shady doctor named Schneider (George Macready), has a history of being abused at Jim's hands. Schneider's sleazy lawyer (Warner Anderson) warns Lieutenant Monaghan (Horace McMahon) that Jim had better not harass his client again, so naturally Jim beats the hell out of Schneider in the back of a paddywagon. But why would Jim hold such a personal grudge against Schneider? The film's big surprise is -- it's not personal at all! Jim hates all criminals equally, and Schneider just happens to be the nearest one. That said, Jim does take it rather personally when he learns that Mary once got an abortion from Schneider while in a relationship with a married man (Gerald Mohr). If you thought Jim had a reasonable take on criminals, I expect you'll also agree with his opinions on Mary's earlier pregnancy.
- First, the good news: Detective Story is obviously intended as a tragic indictment of Jim's utter lack of sympathy for everyone and his complete failure to compromise on anything. The film provides his fellow detective, Lou Brody (William Bendix), as a positive example of a tough-but-fair police officer and several sympathetic point-of-view characters like the naive purse thief (Lee Grant) and Arthur's supportive new girlfriend Susan (Cathy O'Donnell) who are appropriately shocked at Jim's behavior. Now, the bad news: it's nearly impossible to view Jim's story as a tragedy because his actions are so repellent. If anything, I found myself rooting for Mary to leave him or for somebody to shoot him, both of which actually did occur by the film's end. I won't say that the film is a waste -- the set and acting are excellent, if you ignore the overly histrionic Wiseman -- but Detective Story feels like a missed opportunity to address the eternally relevant issue of police brutality in a more convincing way.
