In 1952, William Wyler’s excellent noir thriller-drama, described by the famous surrealist Luis Buñuel as a wonderfully directed and performed piece in the service of amoral ideas, was deservedly nominated for 4 Oscars - among others the recently deceased Eleanor Parker as Best Supporting Actress – and in Cannes the actress Lee Grant won the award for Best Supporting Actress for the role of a kleptomaniac
Detective Story is a work of many virtues, chief among them being Wyler’s playful, imaginative and extremely suggestive direction that manages to create an impressive notion of spatial and temporal unity of the story, his great use of the limited space in which the action is taking place and in which fifteen people constantly move and bump into each other, the film’s very effective editing processes with purposeful use of deep frame and background, the skilful and unobtrusive cuts, deft introduction of new faces and distraction of viewers, easy and inconspicuous shift of the dramatic focus and transition from one character to another, as well as a number of sometimes overly colourful supporting characters whose movement through space acts as the dividing line between scenes (acts).
The film is an adaptation of Sidney Kingsley’s chamber drama that had previously come to life in the popular Broadway show, which functions well as a portrayal of everyday life of New York detectives from the 21st police precinct, and displays the anxiety of life in New York. The story focuses on the energetic Lt. James "Jim" McLeod (the excellent Kirk Douglas), a detective prone to abuse who has his own notion of justice, and who, despite opposition from his superiors and colleagues, uses any means necessary to bring criminals to justice. Jim and his beloved wife Mary (the excellent and deservedly Oscar-nominated Eleanor Parker) have been trying to conceive a baby for a long time and one day he gets the opportunity to deal with the deceitful gynaecologist Karl Schneider who has made his fortune by performing risky and life-threatening abortions. However, Jim is not aware that Mary and Schneider share a dark secret from the past, a stain that will come to light that very day and lead to incalculable consequences.
Once again Wyler proved to be a shrewd observer and analyst of human personality, a moralist who skilfully creates dramaturgically complete, well rounded and thoughtful works focused on elaboration of the protagonists’ characters and the exploration of their behaviours and reactions when faced with life's dramas and existentially borderline situations. A perfectionist prone to infinite repetition of scenes until every detail is performed according to his vision, n this film once again, relying on actors’ masterful work to create the impression of reality, authenticity and spontaneity, portrays intimate dramas of the (anti) heroes through effective use of mise-en-scene and purposeful use of medium shots and medium long shots. In the aforementioned context, nor the overly theatrical dramaturgy, or the slightly caricatured supporting characters, who in the end of the story become the key dramatic characters, of the burglars Charley Gennini and Lewis Abbott, or the quite melodramatic and in that sense somewhat problematic finale, do not diminish the value of this great film. Moreover, with its realistic approach to police procedure and everyday life, this film has represented an essential influence on a whole range of prose and TV pop-cultural projects, from Ed McBain, Joseph Wambaugh and Dell Shannon’s crime fiction, the cult television series The Untouchables from the early 1960s, followed by the extremely successful American TV series NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the street in the 1990s, as well as British TV series A Touch of Frost, Suspects and Cracker to a number of currently popular series such as Law and Order and CSI. (Josip Grozdanić)
