User reviews

This top-notch police story rises far above the norm for its type. A true example of ensemble acting, the film incorporates many well-known character actors all putting in first-rate work, led by the superb efforts of Kirk Douglas and William Bendix, the latter in what may be his best screen role. This may be one of the earliest examples of the "typical day" genre, in which multiple story lines occurring in a single day in a certain locale are melded into a whole (a genre exemplified by the "Hill Street Blues" and "Barney Miller" of tv). An excellent script and good direction, aided by interesting characters, keep the dramatic tension moving along briskly to the searing conclusion. This is not your run-of-the-mill police story, and is definitely worth a see.

In one day in the 21st Precinct of New York, many criminals are booked after being arrested: a shoplifter is brought after stealing a purse in a department store; two burglars with extensive criminal record are captured by a policeman burgling an apartment; the small time embezzler Arthur Kindred (Craig Hill), who is primary, is arrested without any resistance. The tough Detective McLeod (Kirk Douglas), who loves his wife Mary (Eleanor Parker), is an honest detective with strong principles and code of honor and zero tolerance. He is near to conclude a case against an abortionist, Dr. Karl Schneider (George Macready), with the testimony of a witness that is coming to identify Dr. Schneider in the precinct. However, the woman is bribed and the upset McLeod hits Schneider, and he insinuates to McLeod's chief, Lt. Monaghan (Horace McMahon), that the problem is personal and gives the name of Mary McLeod. Lt. Monaghan invites Mary to come to his office for investigation, when deep innermost secrets of her past are disclosed leading to a tragedy.

"Detective Story" is amazingly intense and full of emotions in spite of being shot practically in only one scenario in the interior of the precinct. Kirk Douglas gives an outstanding performance, developing a complex character that sees his principles destroyed in a couple of hours with a great intensity. Eleanor Parker is also fantastic, in the dramatic and heartbreaking role of Mary McLeod. The direction of William Wyler is perfect as usual. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Chaga de Fogo" ("Sore of Fire")

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

Kirk Douglas has always excelled in roles where he plays the maverick loner, walking the fine line between anger and insanity. Thus his role as Det. Jim McLeod in "Detective Story" is a real showcase for his acting talents. This is not a crime drama in the conventional sense where there is any real action or crime to solve, even though you have a room full of New York City police detectives on screen for just about the whole movie. Instead it is a character study of Jim McLeod, played by Kirk Douglas. McLeod's motivation in his work is not to solve crimes or even protect the innocent. Instead, he is motivated by a desire to root out evil by his definition of the word. Evil is something McLeod claims that anyone can easily spot. McLeod's world view doesn't differentiate between the one-time bad act of a basically good person, such as Arthur Kindred (Craig Hill), a young man who impulsively stole from his employer in a last ditch attempt to impress a girl he believed he loved, versus the misdeeds of a lifetime criminal, such as the homicidal maniac Charlie (Arthur Kindred), that has also been apprehended by the detective squad that same day.

When confronted by a mistake in the past of the person nearest to him, his own wife, McLeod is equally unforgiving. His rage and disgust is so great, you're not sure what bothers him more - the discovery of his wife's past or the failure of his own nose to sniff out the misdeed prior to this. By the time McLeod realizes his own inflexibility and lack of empathy have cost him what he loves the most, it is too late to undo the damage, and this leads to one last tragedy.

This is Douglas in an early fine if not huggable role, and is recommended viewing for that reason alone. William Bendix makes up for the lack of likability in Douglas' character as Detective Lou Brady, who likes to temper the letter of the law with a little humanity. Then there's a very young Lee Grant as a shoplifter who just can't stop babbling. Finally, there's Horace McMahon as Lieutenant Monaghan, head of the detective squad and the kind of boss we'd all like to have.

A play which tells the story of a day in the lives of the several people who populate a police precinct translates more or less transparently between mediums, though with its theatrical pace results in a vigorous, enthralling drama with a solid, receptive cast. Kirk Douglas, playing the central cop, a brooding maverick who can't stand having to stop at the line between law and vengeance, is very intense in particular, the breadth of view of a crystallizing soul masqueraded by rigor and command, which makes for some delicate scenes with his wife, Eleanor Parker. The very natural William Bendix is one of the other officers in the precinct, a cop with a delicate sensibility, the clear contrast to the uncompromising protagonist. But the film's brightest highlights are the few moments dominated by the brilliant Lee Grant, whose character seems non-sequitary yet has a refreshing outside-world quality. Dense with lively exhibitions of the sort of devil-may-care influx that transits and languishes through a workday of plainclothes detectives, it is a police procedural not in the traditional sense. There is no central case over which our detectives toil. There is simply an allotment of arrests and conflicting views on the confines of police work.

While this Edgar-winning cop drama stays in effect a filmed play, William Wyler uses the innate limitations of such a project as a creative outlet, as well as his widely known grating approach multiple retakes. The cooped up setting is not just a space where all manner of characters eyeball each other and interplay. It complements the lurking gist of the story's thematic elements and overall to the film's dramatic impact. The staging of the individual scenes, which a lot of the time plays on foreground-background relationships, is intensified by Lee Garmes's deep-focus cinematography, a consistent device used by Wyler throughout his body of work no matter how much he diversifies in genre and tone.

The core of Wyler's consistency throughout his tremendous career is his insistence on emotional truth, thus his enraging approach to directing actors, and thus his track record with directing Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning performances. Wyler's discretion of angle exposes or intimates more character than the last and apprehends the decisive sensibility to give significance to the experience of seeing the film. He didn't coin anything new. He didn't use unprecedented angles or logistically fussy dolly takes. He's discerning from the acknowledged bill of fare of long shot, medium shot and close-up as the atmosphere of the scene calls for.

Some films are so full of life they have to be seen again and again. I first saw this one in my early teens and loved it, despite difficulty in understanding it. Decades later I still love it, and always will. It has its flaws: everybody overacts (beautifully), as if on stage. The writing is a bit too well-structured, almost like clockwork, the characters are a bit too symbolic and easy to categorise. The comic relief kicks in just on schedule. The psychological diagnosis is too precise. And yet, this is one of the greatest films ever made. It has a sense of respect for the totality of life, and makes tragedy almost poetic. Fascinating though the plot may be, the essence of this film goes beyond plot. It's a symphony of cacophony. The playwright would have made a fine composer.

Adapted from a stage play by Sidney Kingsley, "Detective Story" depicts a day at a New York police precinct in the early 1950's. The film resembles a feature-length episode of "Barney Miller" without the jokes as the detectives bring various shoplifters, petty thieves, and embezzlers into the station for booking. However, the film does not lack humor as a broad hammy performance by Joseph Wiseman and an only slightly subtler take on a Brooklynese shoplifter by Lee Grant lighten up the often heavily dramatic proceedings.

The central character, Detective Jim McLeod, is an unforgiving, by-the-book veteran, who sees the world in black and white, good versus evil, with no shades of gray in between. Kirk Douglas brings McLeod to life in one of his finest, most powerful performances. Douglas's Oscar-caliber work is matched by a fragile, deeply felt performance by Eleanor Parker as McLeod's wife, who harbors a secret from her past that, unknown to either McLeod or his wife, connects back to an on-going police case. The scenes between Douglas and Parker are among the best in the film.

Veteran director William Wyler retains most of the play's action in the central precinct room and only occasionally breaks from the claustrophobic set for a breather. Lee Garmes photographed "Detective Story" in crisp black and white, and some of the shots of New York City could be framed and hung on a wall. With a cast of top character players that includes Gladys George, William Bendix, Frank Faylen, and George Macready, the multi-character, multi-plotted "Detective Story" is a powerful, well-acted film that somehow is less often seen than its quality warrants.

The film is the story of a great detective who didn't know he was trailing his own heartbreak . Brought by William Wyler , Academy Award Winner who gave ¨The best years of our lives¨ and Pulitzer Price Winner Sidney Kingsley , author of ¨Dead end¨ and featuring of the cast that made from the smash Broadway play so sensational about a love with no punches pulled . The picture talks the events at a N.Y.C. police precinct .

Excellent casting with Kirk Douglas as an angry , grumpy and violent police with obsession to imprison a doctor played by George MacReady , Eleanor Parker as the loved wife with a terrible secret , William Bendix as a good , agreeable policeman , Joseph Wiseman as a hysterical thief and Lee Grant who was prized in Cannes festival to the best female interpretation . Cameraman Lee Garmes makes an exceptional cinematography reflecting splendid images in white and black photography plenty of lights and darks , typical of noir cinema . And uncredited John F Seitz who filmed the last three weeks of production . Lee Garmes along with Nicholas Musuruca , John Seitz and John Alton cinematographers are the fundamental artifices of this expressionist cinema or ¨Film Noir¨full of dark and portentous frames . William Wyler direction is magnificent , blending documentary and police critical , he realized this exciting adaptation at a theater until the actors learned the dialog and , after that , he made a quick shooting . The film was nominated for Academy Award Winner to screenplay , Philip Yordan , Robert Wyler , (director's brother) , Eleanor Parker as main actress and Lee Grant as secondary actress . Support cast is frankly excellent such as Horace McMahon, Joseph Wiseman, Michael Strong and Lee Grant , all of them re-enacted their stage roles . Being film debut of Lee Grant and Burt Mushin .

The motion picture was compellingly directed by the great maestro William Wyler . Wyler was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema and the winner of three Best Director Academy Awards . Wyler was a great professional who had a career full of successes in all kind of genres as Film Noir : ¨Detective story¨ , ¨The desperate hours¨ , ¨Dead End¨ ; Western : ¨The Westener¨, ¨Friendly persuasion¨ , ¨Big Country¨ , but his speciality were dramas as : ¨Jezebel¨ , ¨The letter¨ , ¨Wuthering Heights¨ , ¨The best years of our lives¨, ¨Mrs Miniver¨, ¨The heiress¨ , ¨the little Foxes¨ , ¨The collector¨ and Comedy as two films starred by Audrey Hepburn : ¨How to steal a million¨ and of course ¨Roman's holiday¨ with Audrey at her Oscar-winning best and immortal comedy-romance. Furthermore , his greatest hit was the Super-Oscarized ¨Ben-Hur¨. ¨Detective story¨resulted to be a great film , nowadays very well considered . Rating : Better than average . Well worth watching .

DETECTIVE STORY simply represents a day in the police station, which includes a variety of relationships. Extremely emotional and dynamic day packaged in an interesting melodrama. Hard-line detective despised criminals, but because of personal reasons and inner demons attaches maniacal dedication. Other characters we gradually discover their own privacy and secrets in various ways, introducing us into a vortex of emotions, fears and inner demons. So in one day won and lost cases, born of love, winning looted divorcees, abandoned partners and lose lives.

Each character (really it is a lot) passes through a particular human crisis. More or less. It is interesting to see how people behave in such situations. The detective who was bitter, ruthless criminals and without any mercy and compromises affect human destiny is found before the abyss of life. The main temptation in life is his own wife.

The script and characterization could be a lot better. I think these institutions are the most important for this movie. This is how you lose credibility. The main character is somewhat fanatic. Around him all simply "yelling and screaming". Violence is a constant and emotions constantly raging. At the end of the film the murder has brought "peace". Serious topics are not fully explained. So much hatred, violence and emotion is difficult to properly describe.

All are somehow to blame, except for the wife of the main character who is truly innocent. Kirk Douglas as Detective Jim McLeod is strong and aggressive detective who pulls the problem of childhood, past and can not be worn with the present. Negative examples of life shaped his personality.

I am not thrilled. The story has touched some sensitive topics, human internal disturbances and ended the killing on the basis of which can not be performed any valid conclusion.

William Wyler, who won three Oscars for Best Director ("Mrs. Miniver", "The Best Years of Our Lives", "Ben-Hur"), and been nominated a record 12 times between 1937 and 1966, is not often thought of as one of our "great" directors. Truly, he was. Here, with the filmization of Sidney Kingsley's stage play about a NYC police station, focusing on the amazingly bad day which has been happening to Detective Kirk Douglas, Wyler shows his skill and diversity.

Kirk Douglas is the vision of a crumbling spirit disguised by toughness and authority. He towers over a stellar cast, including Eleanor Parker as his wife, William Bendix as one of the other officers in the precinct, and Lee Grant as an inexperienced shoplifter. The one actor who truly stands out from the rest is Joseph Wiseman, who is simply a spark plug made up as an actor, giving an astounding recreation of his stage role as an on-edge, cheap suit-wearing thief. He displays the physical dexterity of James Cagney in the physique of a beanstalk, and proves to be more dangerous than any other movie crook we'd seen in the past.

In one of the great Oscar follies of our time (and there were many), the 1952 voters neglected to nominate Douglas as Best Actor, or Wiseman in a supporting slot. Nominations were given out for Wyler's direction, the screenplay, and for Parker and Grant, lead and supporting actresses respectively. None for Best Picture, the other nominations were passed over in favor of "A Place in the Sun" and "A Streetcar Named Desire". And who was picked for Best Picture? Well, staying true to AMPAS's mission of picking only the most harmless movie of the year ("Driving Miss Daisy", "Chariots of Fire", "Shakespeare in Love"), instead of the best, they picked "An American in Paris", which will be remembered by film historians as merely a rehearsal for "Singin' in the Rain". Oh, well.

Detective Story (1951)

**** (out of 4)

William Wyler's brilliant drama about a police detective (Kirk Douglas) who breaks his back trying to put criminals behind bars but there's a secret from his wife that's going to toss all his beliefs in the air. The last time I watched this film was when I was around eleven years old and it left a vivid aftertaste in my mouth after all these years. At the time I was just expecting another "old, dated" film but the realistic nature of this film remains quite powerful and very brutal even in today's jaded world. The entire cast delivers strong performances from the lead Douglas to the smallest of parts in the film. These performances certainly help the film seem all the more real, which is an added bonus. The best performance is of course the one by Douglas who brings all that energy and power to the film. Watching his character slowly breakdown and eventually lose it is something hard to forget.

Maybe Detective Story worked on Broadway, but by the time it reached the screen – pretty much at the apex of the contemporaneous noir cycle – it must have come across as stagy and stale. (If it didn't then, it sure does now.) And of course this bolt of fustian was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (it's just the sort of all-star, self-important drama that would be feted), garnering Oscar nominations for its director, William Wyler, its screenplay and two of its actresses, Eleanor Parker and Lee Grant (none won). But now it looks embalmed compared to other movies that, in 1951, were barely acknowledged – Ace in the Hole (The Big Carnival),Cry Danger, He Ran All The Way, The People Against O'Hara, Roadblock, The Racket.

Play and movie serve up a slice of life cut from the squad room of a New York City precinct. The slice contains several toppings: The quirky (Grant as a `booster,' or shoplifter), the poignant (Craig Hill as a clean-cut embezzler, Cathy O'Donnell as the girl who loves him), and the vicious (Frederic Wiseman as an ethnic burglar). Rounding out the law-and-order roster are William Bendix as Douglas' partner (Bendix alternated between oafish roles and salt-of-the-earth types; this is the latter) and Frank Faylen, a dry shelter of restraint in this monsoon of overacting (Wiseman's the worst offender, but the star of the film makes him sweat for the title).

Kirk Douglas is that star, and the spine of the plot is his vindictive pursuit of George Macready, a lousy abortionist (his patients die). Douglas is rigid and righteous, not to mention short of fuse; Chief of Detectives Horace McMahon is forever warning him to simmer down. When Douglas sends Macready to the hospital, McMahon investigates the roots of the antagonism. He brings in Douglas' wife (Parker) who has a past of which her husband is at first ignorant and finally unforgiving....

Douglas is offered up as a man beset by demons, among them his dead father, but there's so little background divulged that it's no more than a Freudian tease. At the end, several story lines converge melodramatically and clumsily, culminating with a literal and metaphorical Act of Contrition. It's a case where the downbeat ending – a good, old-fashioned Greek catharsis – doesn't atone for the writing, acting and movie-making sins that led up to it.

"Detective Story" is a film noir which tells the story of a day in the life of a New York police station. There are a number of strands to the plot, dealing not only with the detectives who live there but also with various people who are arrested on suspicion of crime, including an abortionist, a young embezzler, a pair of burglars and a female shoplifter.

The main character is Detective Jim McLeod. He has been described as an embittered cynic, but that is probably inaccurate. He is a man with strongly held moral principles- he is a devout Catholic- who holds criminals in contempt and will do anything to obtain a conviction, including using the sort of strong-arm methods to force a confession which even in the fifties would have been frowned upon by his superiors. We learn that Jim McLeod's attitude towards criminals derives from his own troubled past and his hatred of his father, himself a criminal who habitually abused McLeod's mother.

An important strand in the plot involves the embezzler, Arthur Kindred. Arthur is a young man of previous good character who was tempted to steal from his employer in order to impress his girlfriend, a successful model used to leading the high life. We never see this girlfriend in the film but her younger sister Susan, who seems to be in love with Arthur herself, arrives at the precinct with $120, hoping that if she can repay the stolen money the employer will agree to drop charges. The man is willing to do so, until he is bullied into pressing charges by McLeod, who believes that if you show mercy to a first offender he will go on to commit further crimes. (We learn that Arthur has a distinguished war record, but in 1951 anyone with five years wartime military service would have had to have been rather older than the 24-year-old Craig Hill. Perhaps the action is supposed to take place at an earlier date, shortly after the end of the war).

An even more important plot strand involves the abortionist, Dr Karl Schneider. The film, in fact, never actually uses the words "abortion" or "abortionist", which at the time would have been forbidden by the Production Code, and instead makes vague reference to "baby farming". Reading between the lines, however, there can be little doubt that Schneider has in fact been carrying out illegal abortions. Although McLeod despises all criminals, he has a particular hatred for abortionists, especially Schneider, whom he sees as a butcher and killer of young women, and has no compunction about subjecting the doctor to physical violence. It is suggested that McLeod's passionate loathing of Schneider must be rooted in some episode in his past.

In some ways McLeod can be seen as the spiritual ancestor of Dirty Harry, Popeye Doyle, Frank Bullitt and the other "tough guy cops" of the late sixties and seventies who took a similarly robust attitude towards law enforcement. "Detective Story", however, is not simply a "tough guy cop" film made a decade and a half before they became fashionable. It was based upon a successful Broadway play and betrays its theatrical origins; for the most part it is set in a single building, the precinct itself, and there is little physical action apart from the final denouement. Perhaps more importantly, it takes a different attitude towards crime and punishment to that taken by the average "tough guy cop" thriller. Whereas the scriptwriters of the seventies generally took an admiring view of the likes of Harry Callahan, in "Detective Story" McLeod's uncompromising stance towards criminals is criticised- even by his own wife- as harsh, unforgiving and at odds with his professed Christian faith.

The film was nominated for four Oscars, including "Best Director" for William Wyler, but did not win in any category. The "Best Actress" nomination for Eleanor Parker as McLeod's wife Mary was well-deserved, although I thought that Lee Grant was rather fortunate to be nominated for "Best Supporting Actress" in a very minor role. Surprisingly, there was to be no "Best Actor" nomination for Kirk Douglas's performance as McLeod, one of a number of characters he played during this part of his career who were forceful, aggressive and often to some degree unsympathetic. (Others include Midge Kelly in "Champion" and Jonathan Shields in "The Bad and the Beautiful"). Douglas was to be unlucky in his relationship with the Academy, receiving only three Oscar nominations in his distinguished career and never winning.

"Detective Story" has its faults; it is at times too melodramatic and it is over-reliant on coincidence. (I won't give away the rather implausible set of circumstances on which the ending depends, as I don't want to write a spoiler). Overall, however, it is a decent film with some good acting, especially from Douglas, some powerful dialogue and something worthwhile to say about issues of wrongdoing, guilt and forgiveness. 7/10

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.

KIRK DOUGLAS deserved at least an Oscar nomination for his role as the high-strung detective who sees things in terms of black and white--no grays in between--while co-star ELEANOR PARKER did receive a Best Actress nomination for her role as his wife with a secret in her past.

William Wyler has taken the stage play and turned it into a gripping story about events unfolding in a New York Police Precinct dealing with all the everyday petty thieves and criminals who keep the police busy trying to sort out their stories. On the debit side, by today's standards, all of the most intense performances seem more than a little melodramatic. And that includes Douglas and Parker.

Yet, the film remains fascinating. Kirk's character, a man of rigid principles with a strict moral code, is unable to forgive his wife for her past indiscretions, and his wife realizes that she can't live with a man who's unable to let go of his accusing nature.

LEE GRANT does a brilliant job as a nerdy shoplifter, although her New York accent seems a bit forced at times. All the precinct characters, including WILLIAM BENDIX and FRANK FAYLEN, are marvelously well cast, as is CATHY O'DONNELL as the sweet young thing who wants to do the right thing for a good guy nabbed for embezzling.

It all works beautifully, as directed by William Wyler, with the melodrama reaching a fever pitch once certain disclosures are made involving Kirk's marital problems.

Summing up: Outstanding performances and riveting story make this a must see.

"Detective Story" is a most enjoyable film that shows a day's work in a Police Precinct in New York. It has a main plot involving Detective Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas) and several complementary situations that at the end sort of mix up in an exciting and tense finale. The picture could be classified as a "film noir" and is very good one in the genre.

McLeod is a tough cop always stuck to legal procedures who makes no difference between major criminals and common ones (murderers, thieves and shoplifters are all the same to him) and he shows no human feelings whatsoever towards them. When he turns in a corrupt doctor (George McReady) something in the past of his wife Mary (Eleanor Parker) comes to light with devastating consequences for the the man.

Director William Wyler achieves a perfect atmosphere in the precinct with a most adequate black and white photography and he sustains a good rhythm with no bumps that increases in tension as the picture runs.

The cast is a highlight too. Kirk Douglas, a raising star back then, renders a strong performance as the ruthless detective whose whole world explodes in a matter of hours. Eleanor Parker is also very good as his loving but tortured wife forced to reveal a secret she has kept for years. Horace McMahon, William Bendix, George McReady, Lee Grant andmainly Joseph Wisemann -as a completely insane hoodlum- credit a good and even cast that adds a lot to the film.

Very good entertainment with tension and excitement all along.

I was always interested in seeing this movie and thanks to a storm in NYC and my disinterest in going to work, I finally watched this movie.

I was very disappointed. I found the movie to be highly and needlessly dramatic by all involved. I thought all the characters were cardboard-based, especially Lee Grant, who overdoes her New Yawk accent so much it made a shiver go down my spine. Douglas & Parker have a decent scene or two but for the most part do not connect with each other.

Best scene by miles was one where Gladys George (she was the nuts widow in "The Maltese Falcon") goes to the precinct to pick a criminal from a line-up. She is on screen for maybe 90 seconds, but they were the realest thing in this sappy and stagey movie.

I have a lot of respect for William Wyler and the cast, normally, but this one misfired, for me at least.