# Detective Story (1951)

### reviewed by
David Nusair

    Detective Story (Reviewed on Aug. 19th/98)

Starring Kirk Douglas, William Bendix, Lee Grant

Kirk Douglas is one of those rare American actors who can say more with a simple glance than most can say with pages of dialogue. All he has to do is look at someone with a raised eyebrow, and you instantly know what he's thinking.

"Detective Story" features one of Kirk Douglas's finest performances. He stars as a New York detective that has his whole world fall apart in one night. The film is based on a play, and this is quite evident, as most of the movie takes place in the one-room flat that the detective's work in.

The film opens with the Douglas character getting ready to go home to his wife, but through a series of events, he never quite makes it there. The bulk of the movie follows the case of a man named Schneider, a surgeon who routinely performs abortions with a high fatality rate. However, this Schneider character has a connection in the past of Douglas's wife; a connection Douglas himself is not aware of. Many secrets are revealed in the last half hour of this film. Secrets I would not dream of giving away.

With a name like "Detective Story", one would assume the film would resemble an episode of "NYPD Blue", but it doesn't quite work out that way. However, we do see Douglas at work on a few other cases throughout the running time. Lee Grant (virtually unrecognizable) plays a meek Jewish woman arrested for shoplifting. Her scenes with Bendix, another detective, provide the movie with a few laughs.

The performances all around are fantastic. Douglas may be the leader of this ensemble, but he's not the center of attention all the time. We get to catch a glimpse into other cases and other detectives working on those cases.

Which brings me back to Douglas. He has a really emotional scene towards the end of the picture that really makes you feel for him. We can see that this is a man who has spent his whole life trying to eliminate crime, but has finally realized that what he's really done is gotten back at his criminal father. How he handles coming to terms with this is something really worth seeing.

Kirk Douglas is the kind of actor we don't seem to see to much of these days: He's a tough guy, but the human elements are never hidden too deeply underneath that gruff exterior.

    ***1/2 out of ****

    Dave "Loopy" Nusair                                    dnusair@chat.carleton.ca; "The Artist Formally Known As Prince is now going by just The Artist.    ;
    :  Despite this, I will still refer to him as The Fruit."                  :
    ;                                                -Norm MacDonald            ;Dept. of Good Vibes,                   Come visit my Reel Film Reviews site
    Carleton University                   at "http://chat.carleton.ca/~dnusair"

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